To John Scott 25 and 28 May [1863]
Summary
CD does not think he could be wrong about the stigma of Bolbophyllum.
Will not write up Drosera for years.
Praises JS’s experiments. Invites him to send a paper to Linnean Society.
L. C. Treviranus says all species of Primula present two forms except P. longiflora.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | John Scott |
| Date: | 25 and 28 May 1863 |
| Classmark: | DAR 93: B41–4 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4185 |
To Isaac Anderson-Henry 20 January [1863]
Summary
Discusses hybrid strawberry–raspberry
and his research on Primula and Linum.
Suggests breeding experiments.
Doubtful about Donald Beaton’s statement about Pelargonium.
Mentions experiments on peloric flowers.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Isaac Anderson; Isaac Anderson Henry |
| Date: | 20 Jan [1863] |
| Classmark: | DAR 145: 1 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3929 |
To John Scott 1 and 3 August [1863]
Summary
Thanks JS for orchid paper [Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinburgh 7 (1863): 543–50]. JS presents excellent new facts on sterility of orchids.
His argument that coloured primroses are not hybrids is good, as is idea of discovering primrose parentage by breeding for colours.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | John Scott |
| Date: | 1 and 3 Aug 1863 |
| Classmark: | DAR 93: B24, B27–8, B70; DAR 147: 455 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4260 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1877. Hildebrand, Friedrich. 1861. Die Verbreitung der Coniferen in der Jetztzeit und in den früheren geologischen Perioden. Verhandlungen des naturhistorischen Vereines der preussischen Rheinlande und Westphalens 18: 199–384. ‘Illegitimate offspring of dimorphic and trimorphic plants’: On the character and hybrid-like nature …
From Charles William Crocker 1[–4] May 1863
Summary
Observes Plantago’s out-crossing mechanism.
Observations of style lengths of primroses and cowslips.
| Author: | Charles William Crocker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 1[–4] May 1863 |
| Classmark: | DAR 110: 28, DAR 161: 260 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4135 |
From Friedrich Hildebrand 10 November 1863
Summary
Pleased CD has had his [FH’s] orchid paper published [Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 3d ser. 12 (1863): 169–74].
Extension of CD’s Primula heterostyly work.
| Author: | Friedrich Hermann Gustav (Friedrich) Hildebrand |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 10 Nov 1863 |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 201 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4337 |
| letter | (5) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (3) |
| Crocker, C. W. | (1) |
| Hildebrand, Friedrich | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (2) |
| Scott, John | (2) |
| Anderson Henry, Isaac | (1) |
| Anderson, Isaac | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (5) |
| Scott, John | (2) |
| Anderson Henry, Isaac | (1) |
| Anderson, Isaac | (1) |
| Crocker, C. W. | (1) |
Darwin in letters, 1877: Flowers and honours
Summary
Ever since the publication of Expression, Darwin’s research had centred firmly on botany. The year 1877 was no exception. The spring and early summer were spent completing Forms of flowers, his fifth book on a botanical topic. He then turned to the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … no little discovery of mine ever gave me so much pleasure as the making out the …
Photograph album of German and Austrian scientists
Summary
The album was sent to Darwin to mark his birthday on 12 February 1877 by the civil servant Emil Rade, and contained 165 portraits of German and Austrian scientists. The work was lavishly produced and bound in blue velvet with metal embossing. Its ornate…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The album was sent to Darwin to mark his birthday on 12 February 1877 by the civil servant Emil …
Cross and self fertilisation
Summary
The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom, published on 10 November 1876, was the result of a decade-long project to provide evidence for Darwin’s belief that ‘‘Nature thus tells us, in the most emphatic manner, that she abhors…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom , published on 10 November …
Suggested reading
Summary
Contemporary writing Anon., The English matron: A practical manual for young wives, (London, 1846). Anon., The English gentlewoman: A practical manual for young ladies on their entrance to society, (Third edition, London, 1846). Becker, L. E.…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Contemporary writing Anon., The English matron : A practical manual for …
Language: key letters
Summary
How and why language evolved bears on larger questions about the evolution of the human species, and the relationship between man and animals. Darwin presented his views on the development of human speech from animal sounds in The Descent of Man (1871),…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The origin of language was investigated in a wide range of disciplines in the nineteenth century. …
Charles Harrison Blackley
Summary
You may not have heard of Charles Harrison Blackley (1820–1900), but if you are one of the 15 million people in the UK who suffer from hay fever, you are indebted to him. For it was he who identified pollen as the cause of the allergy. Darwin was…
Matches: 1 hits
- … You may not have heard of Charles Harrison Blackley (1820–1900), but if you are one of the 15 …
German poems presented to Darwin
Summary
Experiments in deepest reverence The following poems were enclosed with a photograph album sent as a birthday gift to Charles Darwin by his German and Austrian admirers (see letter from From Emil Rade, [before 16] February 1877). The poems were…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Experiments in deepest reverence The following poems were enclosed with a …
Darwin on race and gender
Summary
Darwin’s views on race and gender are intertwined, and mingled also with those of class. In Descent of man, he tried to explain the origin of human races, and many of the differences between the sexes, with a single theory: sexual selection. Sexual…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin’s views on race and gender are intertwined, and mingled also with those of class. In …
Movement in Plants
Summary
The power of movement in plants, published on 7 November 1880, was the final large botanical work that Darwin wrote. It was the only work in which the assistance of one of his children, Francis Darwin, is mentioned on the title page. The research for this…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The power of movement in plants , published on 7 November 1880, was the final large botanical …
Darwin in public and private
Summary
Extracts from Darwin's published works, in particular Descent of man, and selected letters, explore Darwin's views on the operation of sexual selection in humans, and both his publicly and privately expressed views on its practical implications…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The following extracts and selected letters explore Darwin's views on the operation of sexual …
Dipsacus and Drosera: Frank’s favourite carnivores
Summary
In Autumn of 1875, Francis Darwin was busy researching aggregation in the tentacles of Drosera rotundifolia (F. Darwin 1876). This phenomenon occurs when coloured particles within either protoplasm or the fluid in the cell vacuole (the cell sap) cluster…
Matches: 1 hits
- … By John Schaefer, Harvard University* Charles Darwin’s enthusiasm for carnivorous …
1.14 William Richmond, oil
Summary
< Back to Introduction William Blake Richmond’s portrait of Darwin, dating from 1879, celebrated his honorary degree of LL.D (Doctor in Laws), awarded by Cambridge University in 1877. Darwin’s return to his alma mater for the presentation ceremony…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction William Blake Richmond’s portrait of Darwin, dating from 1879, …
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: 1 hits
- … At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of The variation of …
Plant or animal? (Or: Don’t try this at home!)
Summary
Darwin is famous for showing that humans are just another animal, but, in his later years in particular, his real passion was something even more ambitious: to show that there are no hard-and-fast boundaries between animals and plants. In 1875 Darwin…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin is famous for showing that humans are just another animal, but, in his later years in …
Darwin as mentor
Summary
Darwin provided advice, encouragement and praise to his fellow scientific 'labourers' of both sexes. Selected letters Letter 2234 - Darwin to Unidentified, [5 March 1858] Darwin advises that Professor C. P. Smyth’s observations are not…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin provided advice, encouragement and praise to his fellow scientific 'labourers' of both …
Darwin on human evolution
Summary
'I hear that Ladies think it delightful reading, but that it does not do to talk about it, which no doubt promotes the sale.' For the first time online you can now read the full texts of nearly 800 letters Darwin wrote and received during 1871,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … I shall be well abused, for as my son Frank says: "you treat man in such a bare-faced manner." …
The origin of language
Summary
Darwin started thinking about the origin of language in the late 1830s. The subject formed part of his wide-ranging speculations about the transmutation of species. In his private notebooks, he reflected on the communicative powers of animals, their…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin started thinking about the origin of language in the late 1830s. The subject formed part of …
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: 1 hits
- … Darwin’s book The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species , published in 1877, …
Darwin in letters, 1879: Tracing roots
Summary
Darwin spent a considerable part of 1879 in the eighteenth century. His journey back in time started when he decided to publish a biographical account of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin to accompany a translation of an essay on Erasmus’s evolutionary ideas…
Matches: 1 hits
- … There are summaries of all Darwin's letters from the year 1879 on this website. The full texts of …
Species and varieties
Summary
On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most famous book, and the reader would rightly assume that such a thing as ‘species’ must therefore exist and be subject to description. But the title continues, …or…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most …
