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Darwin Correspondence Project

To John Lindley   28 December [1861]1

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

Dec. 28th

My dear Lindley—

Very many thanks for information about the Acropera luteola, to which name I will attach a note.2

Also many thanks for the Gongora fulva— what a strange monstrous flower! It is, I am sorry to say, quite masculine in its nature & cannot be female of the A. Luteola. The pollen-masses &c are widely different from in Monacanthus viridis the female of Catasetum tridentatum. Of course, one can tell nothing safely from dry specimens, but I cannot help the suspicion that Gongora is also a male.3

I have been looking again very carefully at the placentæ of Acropera & I can see no escape from ranking that plant as a male.4

Yours very truly obliged | Charles Darwin

Footnotes

The year is provided by the relationship to a series of other letters discussing the orchids mentioned in the letter (see nn. 2–4, below).
Monachanthus viridis (‘Monacanthus’ is a misspelling) is a synonym of Catasetum macrocarpum, the jumping orchid. Lindley had suggested that Gongora might be the female of the orchid Acropera luteola (see letter to John Lindley, 24 December [1861]).
For the basis upon which CD judged Acropera to be a male flower, see the letter to Daniel Oliver, 30 November [1861] and Orchids, pp. 206–9.

Bibliography

Orchids: On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1862.

Summary

Thanks JL for information about Acropera luteola.

Also thanks for the Gongora; cannot avoid the impression it is male.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-3353
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
John Lindley
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Lindley letters, A–K: 200)
Physical description
ALS 2pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3353,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3353.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 9

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