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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Henry Groves   27 March 1882

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)

March 27th. 1882

Dear Sir

I am much obliged for your very kind offer.1 I am not well & have not strength to examine Utricularia, but think that I could try & look at the Nitella.2 If it wd not give you too much trouble, I shd. much like to have a living plant. Will you kindly tell me how I cd. keep it alive. into what kind of water— whether there ought to be soil at the bottom of the vessel & about light—

Excuse brevity— Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

Footnotes

Groves’s letter has not been found, but, as Groves was a fellow of the Linnean Society, he may have attended the meeting of 16 March 1882, at which CD’s papers ‘Action of carbonate of ammonia on roots’ and ‘Action of carbonate of ammonia on chlorophyll’ were read.
CD mentioned being very unwell for several days in his letter to W. D. Crick, 10 March [1882]. Utricularia is the genus of bladderworts; CD had studied it when working on Insectivorous plants (see Correspondence vols. 22 and 23). Nitella is a genus of freshwater green algae in the family Characeae (stoneworts).

Bibliography

‘Action of carbonate of ammonia on chlorophyll’: The action of carbonate of ammonia on chlorophyll-bodies. By Charles Darwin. [Read 6 March 1882.] Journal of the Linnean Society of London (Botany) 19: 262–84.

‘Action of carbonate of ammonia on roots’: The action of carbonate of ammonia on the roots of certain plants. By Charles Darwin. [Read 16 March 1882.] Journal of the Linnean Society of London (Botany) 19: 239–61.

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

Insectivorous plants. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1875.

Summary

Thanks HG for kind offer. CD is not well enough to examine the Utricularia, but will try to look at the Nitella.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-13745
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Henry Groves
Sent from
Down
Source of text
The British Library (Add MS 46917: 65)
Physical description
ALS 1p

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13745,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13745.xml

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