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Darwin in letters, 1862: A multiplicity of experiments
Summary
1862 was a particularly productive year for Darwin. This was not only the case in his published output (two botanical papers and a book on the pollination mechanisms of orchids), but more particularly in the extent and breadth of the botanical experiments…
Matches: 23 hits
- … As the sheer volume of his correspondence indicates, 1862 was a particularly productive year for …
- … be so’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker, [15 and] 20 November [1862] ). I have not the least …
- … him from this view ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 14 [January 1862] ): 'no doubt you are right …
- … Huxley replied ( letter from T. H. Huxley, 20 January 1862 ): 'I entertain no doubt that …
- … but continued ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 18 December [1862] ): 'you say the answer to …
- … but complained ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 28 December [1862] ): 'To get the degree of …
- … him the commission ( see letter to John Scott, 11 December [1862] ). Darwin was altogether taken …
- … is no common man’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 12 [December 1862] ). Two sexual forms: …
- … with his study of Primula and escalated throughout 1862 as he searched for other cases of …
- … 1861, and was published in the society’s journal in March 1862. The paper described the two …
- … in almost daily’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 22 January [1862] ). In a postscript, he mentioned his work …
- … telling Hooker ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 7 March [1862] ): ‘I am nearly sure that daylight is …
- … great’, he told Gray ( letter to Asa Gray, 10–20 June [1862] ), ‘I have lately counted one by one …
- … labour over them’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 14 [October 1862] ; see ML 2: 292–3). Other …
- … sets of experiments’ ( letter to M. T. Masters, 24 July [1862] ). The materials that Darwin …
- … case he determined to experiment on Linum in 1862. Soon he was enthralled, especially by the …
- … be generically distinct’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 14 July [1862] ). The case was so good that he …
- … Linum ‘at once’ ( letter to John Scott, 11 December [1862] ), writing up his experiments in …
- … to make out this wonderfully complex case—’ ( letter to Daniel Oliver, 29 [July 1862] ). The three …
- … the structure of almost every flower’ ( letter to Daniel Oliver, 8 June [1862] ). I …
- … to wait. ‘It is a very extraordinary book!’, wrote Daniel Oliver on 14 May, and George Bentham …
- … a new era in the science’ (A. Gray 1862b, p. 429). Oliver joined in the chorus, telling him: ‘Your …
- … & most promising direction to our studies’ ( letter from Daniel Oliver, 14 May 1862 ). Darwin …
Insectivorous Plants
Summary
Sources|Discussion Questions|Experiment Plants that consume insects Darwin began his work with insectivorous plants in the mid 1860s, though his findings would not be published until 1875. In his autobiography Darwin reflected on the delay that…
Darwin in letters, 1864: Failing health
Summary
On receiving a photograph from Charles Darwin, the American botanist Asa Gray wrote on 11 July 1864: ‘the venerable beard gives the look of your having suffered, and … of having grown older’. Because of poor health, Because of poor health, Darwin…
Matches: 9 hits
- … thus completing the work he had started on the genus in 1862. His varied botanical observations and …
- … himself as ‘a broken-down brother-naturalist’, sent to Daniel Oliver, keeper of the herbarium at the …
- … to J. D. Hooker, 2 June [1864] ). When Darwin asked Oliver whether the tendrils of …
- … than modified branches or leaves as most botanists thought, Oliver initially expressed reservations. …
- … routinists regard in the light of axioms’ ( letter from Daniel Oliver, [17 March 1864] ). Though …
- … act. In his ongoing quest to confirm the statement in his 1862 book on orchids that nature ‘abhors …
- … Scott, a gardener at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, in 1862 with a letter regarding the …
- … and Book of Joshua critically examined (Colenso 1862–79). After reading extracts from Colenso’s …
- … Correspondence vol. 10, letter to Asa Gray, 6 November [1862] ). A declaration that Erasmus …
Floral Dimorphism
Summary
Sources|Discussion Questions|Experiment Floral studies In 1877 Darwin published a book that included a series of smaller studies on botanical subjects. Titled The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, it consisted primarily of…
Matches: 4 hits
- … Letter 3468 - Darwin to JD Hooker, 7 March 1862 Darwin wishes he could sympathize with Asa …
- … of his new Orchid book. Letter 3515 - Daniel Oliver to Darwin, 23 April 1862 …
- … on a set of experiments carried out at Darwin’s request. (Oliver would later become a professor of …
- … Cassia . He also mentions the ongoing work of his assistant Daniel Oliver. He reflects on the …
Climbing plants
Summary
Darwin’s book Climbing plants was published in 1865, but its gestation began much earlier. The start of Darwin’s work on the topic lay in his need, owing to severe bouts of illness in himself and his family, for diversions away from his much harder book on…
Matches: 9 hits
- … of animals and plants under domestication in 1868. In 1862 he had read a ‘Note on the coiling of …
- … find nothing in any book which I have: neither Hooker nor Oliver knew anything of these movements ’ …
- … was incredulous. ‘As to tendrils, What are Hooker & Oliver (the latter a Professor too) …
- … climbers, this does not distress my weakened Brain— Ask Oliver to look over enclosed queries (& …
- … me if botanists wd let all tendrils be modified leaves’. Daniel Oliver, for example, insisted, …
- … dissecting and drawing. Darwin sent William’s drawing to Oliver, commenting, ‘ Does not this render …
- … between foliar and axial parts, which, however, Oliver admitted, sometimes ‘ shades off and is lost …
- … distinction. They are both axial.’ Only days later, Oliver apologised for the tone of his previous …
- … to find that I have a good deal of new matter ’. He told Oliver that Mohl, despite his book being …
Darwin in letters, 1865: Delays and disappointments
Summary
The year was marked by three deaths of personal significance to Darwin: Hugh Falconer, a friend and supporter; Robert FitzRoy, captain of the Beagle; and William Jackson Hooker, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and father of Darwin’s friend…
Matches: 5 hits
- … letters to the Linnean Society, Darwin enlisted the help of Daniel Oliver, a botanist at Kew, to …
- … on Verbascum. Darwin had suggested to Scott in 1862, when Scott was working at the Royal Botanic …
- … vol. 10, letter to John Scott, 19 November [1862] ). Darwin had already written to Hooker of …
- … disturbing the serenity of the Christian world’ (Brewster 1862, p. 3). John Hutton Balfour, though …
- … vol. 10, letter from J. H. Balfour, 14 January 1862 ). According to Hooker, Balfour’s prejudice …
Darwin in letters, 1863: Quarrels at home, honours abroad
Summary
At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of The variation of animals and plants under domestication, anticipating with excitement the construction of a hothouse to accommodate his increasingly varied botanical experiments…
Matches: 10 hits
- … with Owen when it became clear that Owen’s November 1862 description of the recently discovered …
- … work on mimicry in butterflies, which had been published in 1862 (see Correspondence vol. 10). …
- … to the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury in September 1862 ( see letter to Julius von Haast, 22 …
- … leaves, asking the professional botanists Gray, Hooker, and Daniel Oliver for references on …
- … the family, to explaining the phenomenon ( see letter from Daniel Oliver, 17 February 1863 , …
- … men, given at the Museum of Practical Geology at the end of 1862, and published as a book in early …
- … that had already occupied much of his time in 1861 and 1862. With the publication in 1862 of his …
- … a question he had been struggling with in 1861 and 1862; he wanted to determine experimentally …
- … Edinburgh, had initiated the correspondence in November 1862 with a letter correcting Darwin’s …
- … ( see letter to Asa Gray, 23 February [1863] , and Loring 1862). However, his tolerance of Gray’s …
Orchids
Summary
Why Orchids? Darwin wrote in his Autobiography, ‘During the summer of 1839, and, I believe, during the previous summer, I was led to attend to the cross-fertilisation of flowers by the aid of insects, from having come to the conclusion in my…
Matches: 7 hits
- … book’, as Darwin usually referred to it, appeared in May 1862 ( Orchids ). A letter to …
- … that of a more traditional botanist like Hooker. Writing to Daniel Oliver in October 1860, Darwin …
- … sexes in Catasetum and Myanthus . In a letter to Daniel Oliver in December 1861, Darwin …
- … than almost anything in my life. ’ By February 1862, Darwin was able to send the manuscript …
- … details of structure. ’ Orchids was published in May 1862. ‘A new and unexpected track’ …
- … that he presented himself to the Linnean Society on 3 April 1862, ‘On the three remarkable sexual …
- … Sales were slow, but the book had a positive reception. Daniel Oliver, who was professor of botany …
Darwin in letters, 1860: Answering critics
Summary
On 7 January 1860, John Murray published the second edition of Darwin’s Origin of species, printing off another 3000 copies to satisfy the demands of an audience that surprised both the publisher and the author. It wasn't long, however, before ‘the…
Matches: 5 hits
- … next year and published the results of the orchid study in 1862. Back to the origin of sex: …
- … He presented the results of his study in a paper of 1862 and in The different forms of flowers on …
- … only of Hooker but also of a newly appointed Kew botanist, Daniel Oliver; his old friend and …
- … selection. As the letters between Darwin, Hooker, and Oliver indicate, the novelty of this approach …
- … (letters to Charles Lyell, 24 November [1860] , and to Daniel Oliver, 20 October [1860] ). …
Insectivorous plants
Summary
Darwin’s work on insectivorous plants began by accident. While on holiday in the summer of 1860, staying with his wife’s relatives in Hartfield, Sussex, he went for long walks on the heathland and became curious about the large number of insects caught by…
Matches: 5 hits
- … Darwin roped in Hooker’s assistant at Kew Gardens, Daniel Oliver, to help him with his observations, …
- … in the autumn of 1860 alone. Darwin started by asking Oliver to compare Drosera with Dionaea …
- … without numerous & carefully repeated experiments ’. Oliver observed related plants in the …
- … reaction of Drosera leaves to various substances. When Oliver got a reaction from gum which …
- … year . While on holiday in Bournemouth in September 1862 for the sake of his son Leonard’s …
3.4 William Darwin, photo 1
Summary
< Back to Introduction In the 1860s Darwin increasingly turned to two of his sons - first to William and later to Leonard - for the fashioning of his image. William, the eldest, apparently took up photography c.1857, when still in his teens, and…
Matches: 3 hits
- … among Darwin’s friends and correspondents. In November 1862 Darwin wrote to an old Beagle shipmate, …
- … or enclosing photographs by William went to the botanist Daniel Oliver in September 1862, to the …
- … 11 April [1861] (DCP-LETT-3115). Letters from Darwin to Daniel Oliver, [17 Sept. 1862], (DCP-LETT …
Forms of flowers
Summary
Darwin’s book The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, published in 1877, investigated the structural differences in the sexual organs of flowers of the same species. It drew on and expanded five articles Darwin had published on the…
Matches: 7 hits
- … meaning of the dimorphism ’. Two months later, he told Daniel Oliver, ‘ I am surprised to find …
- … briefly mentioned in his Primula paper. In July 1862, Darwin explained to Gray, ‘ I have …
- … of the genus Linum ’, between 11 and 21 December 1862. The paper was read at a meeting of the …
- … to Lythrum , a genus that he had begun researching in 1862 after Hooker had supplied him with …
- … of Lythrum he had been working on since late July 1862. He told Oliver that, ‘ as each form has …
- … of the crossing experiments immediately, but by October 1862, he admitted to Hooker, ‘ I am rather …
- … 117: 50). Darwin released William from counting in November 1862, telling him, ‘ Next year I shall …
Darwin’s Photographic Portraits
Summary
Darwin was a photography enthusiast. This is evident not only in his use of photography for the study of Expression and Emotions in Man and Animal, but can be witnessed in his many photographic portraits and in the extensive portrait correspondence that…
Darwin’s reading notebooks
Summary
In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to read in Notebook C (Notebooks, pp. 319–28). In 1839, these lists were copied and continued in separate notebooks. The first of these reading notebooks (DAR 119…
Matches: 11 hits
- … Dispatches [Wellesley 1834–9] Carlyles Oliver Cromwell [Carlyle 1845] (read) Keppells( …
- … 1837–8]— read aloud April 12 th . Carlyles Oliver Cromwell [Carlyle 1845] May 5. Ray …
- … du rire. In–8. A. Durand . 3 fr. 117 [Dumont 1862] Goethe. — Œuvres d’histoires …
- … . London. [Other eds.] 119: 13b ——. 1845. Oliver Cromwell’s letters and speeches: with …
- … 142–214. *119: 21v.; 119: 18a Clarke, Edward Daniel. 1810–23. Travels in various …
- … . 9 vols. Paris. *128: 169 Defoe, Daniel. 1719. The life and strange surprizing …
- … à Buffon.) Paris. *119: 14v. Dumont, Léon. 1862. Des causes du rire. Paris. *128: …
- … London. *119: 23, 24; 128: 5 Ekmarck, Carl Daniel. 1781. On the migration of birds. In …
- … G. H. Hodson. London. 128: 25 Hofacker, Johann Daniel. 1828. Ueber die Eigenschaften …
- … Illustrated Library.) London. *128: 157 Johnson, Daniel. 1822. Sketches of field sports …
- … *119: 4v.; 119: 13a Wilcke, Henricus Christianus Daniel. 1781. On the police of nature. In …
From morphology to movement: observation and experiment
Summary
Darwin was a thoughtful observer of the natural world from an early age. Whether on a grand scale, as exemplified by his observations on geology, or a microscopic one, as shown by his early work on the eggs and larvae of tiny bryozoans, Darwin was…
Darwin in letters,1866: Survival of the fittest
Summary
The year 1866 began well for Charles Darwin, as his health, after several years of illness, was now considerably improved. In February, Darwin received a request from his publisher, John Murray, for a new edition of Origin. Darwin got the fourth…
Matches: 3 hits
- … by debates about a suitable translator, Bronn having died in 1862. Finally, Julius Victor Carus, a …
- … on dimorphism and dichogamy. As he had done since 1862, Darwin relied on assistance from his …
- … when the young daughter of Hooker’s colleague at Kew, Daniel Oliver, died suddenly. ‘How grieved I …
