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Darwin Correspondence Project

To George Bentham   3 December [1856]1

Down Bromley Kent

Dec. 3d

My dear Sir

I write merely to thank you for your information on the apetalous flowers.—2 The case seems too exceptional to help me; & the whole order will remain my detestable enemies. I will get some Russian violets & will watch them next summer.— I have attended a little to Heartease, & have observed after the rare visits of Bees, that numbers of flowers suddenly became in a few days fertilised.3

Your’s truly obliged | Ch. Darwin

Footnotes

Dated by the relationship to the letter from George Bentham, 2 December [1856].
CD’s observations from 1841 and 1846 are in DAR 46.2 (ser. 3): 15. He described this case in Natural selection, p. 57.

Bibliography

Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.

Summary

Thanks GB for information on apetalous flowers. "The whole order [Leguminosae] will remain my detestable enemies."

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-2010
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
George Bentham
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Bentham Correspondence, Vol. 3, Daintree–Dyer, 1830–1884, GEB/1/3: f. 687)
Physical description
ALS 1p

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2010,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2010.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 6

letter