From W. T. Thiselton-Dyer 6 December 1873
10 Gloucester Road, Kew
Dec 6. 1873
Dear Mr Darwin
Your Cassia is one well known in cultivation and it passes under the name of Cassia floribunda, Hort.1 It is curious how difficult it usually is to determine the species to which cultivated plants belong even when there is little reason to suspect that they have deviated materially from the stock originally introduced.
I asked Mr Bentham, who has made a special study of the genus, what he had done with C. floribunda and he told me that it came very near to C. lævigata, Willd. and was probably one of a series of garden hybrids between that and C. tomentosa, Linn. which have originated in France from whence we get the plant.2 It is no doubt what Lindley figured with rather paler flowers as C. Herbertiana in the Bot. Reg t. 1422.3
That the young leaves of the Cassia should respond to syringing is a most novel and striking fact.4
I wonder whether the closing of the flower of the Pimpernel and many others in cloudy weather is connected with the protection of their process of fertilisation from interference by rain.5
I was glad to look into the question of the Cassia because it is my business to know such things. Apart from that it is no small honour to make any contribution however small to the progress of your newest edifice
Believe me | Yours very truly | W. T. Thiselton Dyer
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Movement in plants: The power of movement in plants. By Charles Darwin. Assisted by Francis Darwin. London: John Murray. 1880.
Summary
Movement in plants.
Information on species of Cassia.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-9174
- From
- William Turner Thiselton-Dyer
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Gloucester Rd, Kew, 10
- Source of text
- DAR 178: 92
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9174,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9174.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 21