To J. S. Henslow 6 August [1856]1
Down Farnborough Kent
Augt 6th
My dear Henslow
I received your letter dated 2d. only yesterday: I shall not come to Cheltenham, though your presence & L. Jenyns paper would be a great temptation.
I am particularly pleased to hear about the Centaurea, the seed, which you gave me did not germinate.2 Your Ægilops has come up & has ripened seed: I forced it so as not to flower at same time with wheat: it has not varied: you formerly called it Æ. ovata now Æ. squarrosa.—3
The Myosotis was sown in open ground, both in sunny & shady places;4 in former place, whence the specimens sent to you came, it was watered weekly with Guano water. Nearly all the flowers are brightish blue, & only a very few on dwarf branches are pink.— The specimens in the more shady place have the lobes of corolla slightly emarginate. The tube of corolla, in comparison with the Calyx seems to be longer in the blue than in the smaller pinkish flowers.
With respect to seeds: I shd. be extremely glad of any water plants; especially of Callitriche verna, Limosella aquatica & Montia fontana, (if such you have).—5 I want, also, to try whether the ripe pods on heads of seed would float in sea-water; if you could help me by sending a few specimens in Box by Post. I have just been correcting my paper on salting seeds for Linnean Journal.—6
My dear Henslow | Yours most truly | Ch. Darwin
The seed of Rosa tomentosa did not come up.—
Footnotes
Bibliography
Collected papers: The collected papers of Charles Darwin. Edited by Paul H. Barrett. 2 vols. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1977.
Summary
Reports on results of forcing and other attempts to produce variations in plants. Asks for some seeds.
Is correcting his Linnean Society paper ["On the action of sea-water", Collected papers 1: 264–71].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1939
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- John Stevens Henslow
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 93: A55–A56
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1939,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1939.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 6