From Thomas Rivers 20 May 1866
Bonks Hill, | Sawbridgeworth.
May 20/66
My Dear Sir/
My son1 was struck last year by observing in his garden the apparent instinct of a “Haricot” French bean—a variety called a dwarf F. B but which puts forth slender twining shoots— one of these was taking an upright direction when suddenly & in calm weather it turned off abruptly to the N.E, & caught hold of the young shoot of a plum tree trained to the wall in front of which the row of beans was growing the tree here made what gardeners call “foreright” shoots2 & to one of these the bean attached itself. My son was amused & took a sketch which I enclose, it will perhaps give you an idea of what took place.3 The row of beans was 2 feet from the end of the plum shoots,
The Wistaria (Glycine) from which I cut the shoots sent to you are from a tree turned to a S.W. aspect so that their return voyage was due N.E.4
I hope to see you at the Congress on Wednesday next5 I am deputed to follow Decandolle in a short lecture on Horticulture the subject “raising new kinds of fruit from seed”6
I have plenty in me but whether it will come out I can’t say
I am My dr Sir | Yrs. very truly | Thos. Rivers
[Enclosure]
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.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
OED: The Oxford English dictionary. Being a corrected re-issue with an introduction, supplement and bibliography of a new English dictionary. Edited by James A. H. Murray, et al. 12 vols. and supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1970. A supplement to the Oxford English dictionary. 4 vols. Edited by R. W. Burchfield. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972–86. The Oxford English dictionary. 2d edition. 20 vols. Prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. Oxford English dictionary additional series. 3 vols. Edited by John Simpson et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993–7.
Summary
Sends a sketch of the haricot climbing the shoot of the plum-tree [see 4866].
Hopes to see CD at the [Horticultural] Congress on Wednesday [30 May].
Sends data on movement direction of Wisteria shoots.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-5102
- From
- Thomas Rivers
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Sawbridgeworth
- Source of text
- DAR 176: 166; 176: 188.1
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp encl 1p
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5102,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5102.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 14