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Darwin Correspondence Project

To J. D. Hooker   4 December [1857]1

Down Bromley Kent

Dec. 4th

My dear Hooker

I send off this day D. C.2 & the 2 pamphlets, for which very many thanks. I was particularly glad to have seen Thuret.—3 I enclose the results of D. C. which, of course, I do not wish returned; but I shd. be very glad of your opinion on two points therein specified, whenever you have a little leisure, which probably will not be soon.—4 I have to beg one other favour; viz name of any intelligent Curator (& permission to use your or Sir William’s name as introduction) of any Botanic Garden in hot or hottish & dryish country, as Sydney or Cape of G. Hope, that I may enquire about temperate plants withstanding dryish heat, for my Glacial Chapter.5 I know you once gave me reference to some remark of your own on tropical or temperate plants ascending or descending more on dry or damp mountains; but thinking it would never concern me, I did not keep it.

I shd. be very glad to hear sometime how Henslow & all the Family are after their dreadful loss.6 Pray give my very kind remembrances & sympathy to Mrs Hooker;7 but perhaps she is yet at Hitcham, & indeed I do not know whether you are at Kew.—

My dear Hooker | Yours most truly | C. Darwin

The Parcel shall be paid to London.—

I hope you expressed my most sincere sympathy to poor dear Henslow.

Thank you very much for note just received telling me all I wanted to know about the Henslows—8 Thanks.—

Footnotes

The year is given by the reference to Harriet Henslow, who died on 20 November 1857.
Candolle and Candolle 1824–73.
Thuret 1854–5. CD cited this work in his chapter on hybridism, where he wrote: ‘Mr. Thuret has shown that Fucus serratus could quite easily be fertilised by F. vesiculosus, whereas he never once could effect, after repeated trials, the reciprocal cross.’ (Natural selection, p. 413).
See letter from J. D. Hooker, [6 December 1857]. The final results of CD’s calculations derived from volumes of Candolle and Candolle 1824–73 are given in Table III of Natural selection, pp. 153–4.
See letter from J. D. Hooker, [6 December 1857], and letter to F. J. H. von Mueller, 8 December [1857].

Bibliography

Candolle, Augustin Pyramus de and Candolle, Alphonse de. 1824–73. Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis, sive enumeratio contracta ordinum generum specierumque plantarum huc usque cognitarum, juxta methodi naturalis normas digesta. 19 vols. Paris: Treuttel & Würtz [and others].

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.

Thuret, Gustave Adolphe. 1854–5. Recherches sur la fecondation des Fucacées, suivies d’observations sur les anthéridies des Algues. Annales des sciences naturelles (botanique) 4th ser. 2: 197–214; 3: 5–28.

Summary

Inquiries on effect of dry heat on temperate plants for glacial chapter.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-2180
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sent from
Down
Source of text
DAR 114: 216
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2180,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2180.xml

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

letter