To J. T. Moggridge 13 October [1865]1
Down Bromley
Oct. 13.
My dear Sir
I am especially obliged to you for your beautiful plates and letter press;2 for no single point in natural history interests and perplexes me so much as the self-fertilisation of the Bee orchis.3 You have already thrown some light on the subject and your present observations promise to throw more.4
I formed two conjectures first, that some insect during certain seasons might cross the plants, but I have almost given up this; nevertheless pray have a look at the flowers next season. Secondly I conjectured that the Spider and Bee orchises might be a crossing and self-fertile form of the same species.5 Accordingly I wrote some years ago to an acquaintance asking him to mark some Spider orchises and observe whether they retained the same character;6 but he evidently thought the request as foolish as if I had asked him to mark one of his cows with a ribbon to see if it would turn next Spring into a horse. Now will you be so kind as to tie a string round the stem of half a dozen Spider orchises and when you leave Mentone7 dig them up and I would try and cultivate them and see if they kept constant; but I should require to know in what sort of soil and situations they grow. It would be indispensable to mark the plant so that there could be no mistake about the individual. It is also just possible that the same plant would throw up at different seasons, different flower scapes, and the marked plants would serve as evidence.
With many thanks, my dear Sir, | Your’s sincerely | Ch. Darwin
P.S. | I send by this post my paper on climbing plants parts of which you might like to read.8
Footnotes
Bibliography
‘Climbing plants’: On the movements and habits of climbing plants. By Charles Darwin. [Read 2 February 1865.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 9 (1867): 1–118.
Collected papers: The collected papers of Charles Darwin. Edited by Paul H. Barrett. 2 vols. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1977.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Desmond, Ray. 1994. Dictionary of British and Irish botanists and horticulturists including plant collectors, flower painters and garden designers. New edition, revised with the assistance of Christine Ellwood. London: Taylor & Francis and the Natural History Museum. Bristol, Pa.: Taylor & Francis.
‘Fertilization of orchids’: Notes on the fertilization of orchids. By Charles Darwin. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 4th ser. 4 (1869): 141–59. [Collected papers 2: 138–56.]
Moggridge, John Traherne. 1864. Observations on some orchids of the south of France. [Read 3 November 1864.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 8 (1865): 256–8.
Moggridge, John Traherne. 1869. Ueber Ophrys insectifera L. (part.) Dresden: E. Blochmann & Sohn. [Verhandlungen der Kaiserlichen Leopoldino-Carolinischen deutschen Akademie der Naturforscher 35 (1870): (3d paper) 1–16.]
Orchids 2d ed.: The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilised by insects. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition, revised. London: John Murray. 1877.
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
Discusses self-fertilisation in bee and spider orchids. Asks JTM to conduct experiment.
Comments on plates [see J. T. Moggridge’s contribution to Flora of Mentone and winter flora of the Riviera, including the coast from Marseilles to Genoa London 1866, 1871. Part II dated 1865; Part I, 1866].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4914
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- John Traherne Moggridge
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 146: 374
- Physical description
- C 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4914,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4914.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 13