To Gardeners’ Chronicle 11 April [1855]
Summary
CD describes his experiments on the effects on germination of the immersion of seeds in sea-water. Hopes to throw light on the distribution of plants. Asks readers of Gardeners’ Chronicle to inform him whether such experiments have already been tried and what class or species of seeds they suppose would be particularly liable to be killed by sea-water.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | 11 Apr [1855] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 15, 14 April 1855, p. 242 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1666 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle 21 May [1855]
Summary
Reports on his experiments on action of sea-water on seeds and the bearing of his investigations on the theory of centres of creation and Edward Forbes’s theory of continental extensions to account for distribution of organic forms. CD’s experiments confirm germination powers were retained after 42 days’ immersion by seven out of eight kinds of seeds.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | 21 May [1855] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 21, 26 May 1855, pp. 356–7 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1684 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle [before 26 May 1855]
Summary
Will be obliged if any reader can provide eggs of lizard Lacerta agilis. Wants to ascertain whether they float in sea-water. Offers reward of a few shillings to boys for collecting.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | [before 26 May 1855] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 21, 26 May 1855, p. 360 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1686A |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle [before 21 July 1855]
Summary
Reports on observing hive-bees visiting the leaves of vetch and bean and sucking the minute drops of nectar secreted by the glands on the underside of the stipulae. This phenomenon proves wrong those botanists who believe nectar to be a special secretion for the sole purpose of luring insects to visit flowers and thus to aid in their fertilisation.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | [before 21 July 1855] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 29, 21 July 1855, p. 487 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1723 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle [before 3 November 1855]
Summary
CD requests further details about a rain of shells on the Isle of Wight reported by a Gardeners’ Chronicle correspondent.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | [before 3 Nov 1855] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 44, 3 November 1855, p. 726 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1771 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle 13 November [1855]
Summary
Reports a case of charlock seeds that retained their vitality for at least eight or nine years. He suggests that their power of retaining vitality when buried in damp soil may be an element in preserving the species and therefore seeds may be specially endowed with this capacity, while the power of retaining vitality in dry, artificial conditions may be an indirect accidental quality of little or no use to the species.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | 13 Nov [1855] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 46, 17 November 1855, p. 758 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1780 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle 21 November [1855]
Summary
Sends final results of his experiments on the vitality of various kinds of seeds immersed in sea-water. Corrects a false assumption he made in an earlier letter [1684] that plants with ripe seeds would float for some weeks. Now finds that they sink within a month. Since all the seeds he tried sank in sea-water, his experiments are of little or no use "in regard to the distribution of plants by drifting of their seeds across the sea".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | 21 Nov [1855] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 47, 24 November 1855, p. 773 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1783 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle [before 1 December 1855]
Summary
Corrects a misprint in his letter [1783].
Adds that his experiments show that one cannot infer from the vitality of seeds under dry conditions that they will be preserved in different conditions. Cites the poor ability of Leguminosae to withstand immersion.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | [before 1 Dec 1855] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 48, 1 December 1855, p. 789 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1787 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle [before 29 December 1855]
Summary
Cites [from Gärtner’s Bastarderzeugung (1849), p. 157] a report that seeds from graves of ancient Gauls germinated.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | [before 29 Dec 1855] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 52, 29 December 1855, p. 854 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1802 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle [before 29 December 1855]
Summary
CD requests accurate information on the extent to which the different varieties of fruit-trees produce seedlings like their parents. Do some varieties of pears and apples tend to produce truer offspring than other varieties?
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | [before 29 Dec 1855] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 52, 29 December 1855, p. 854 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1803 |
Gardeners’ Chronicle | (10) |
Darwin, C. R. | (10) |
Gardeners’ Chronicle |