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To H. C. Watson   [17 July 1861]

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Summary

Difficulty of distinguishing varieties and species. Did HCW suggest a printed list that might help?

Polymorphic genera.

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Date:  [17 July 1861]
Classmark:  DAR 185: 49
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1616

To H. C. Watson   [26 August 1855]

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Summary

On geographical distribution of plants. Plant systematics and natural classification.

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Date:  [26 Aug 1855]
Classmark:  DAR 185: 53
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1750

To H. C. Watson   [after 10 June 1856]

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Summary

Do the plants that are common to Europe and North America nearly all live north of the Arctic Circle? CD bases his question on HCW’s "capital" comparison between relations of Europe to North America and Europe to E. Asia if the intervening land had been submerged. CD has been led to speculate that in the mid-Pliocene the organisms now living in middle Europe and northern U. S. lived within the Arctic Circle. Subsequent movements of this flora with advance and retreat of glaciers would explain present distribution better than Forbes’s vast submergences.

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Date:  [after 10 June 1856]
Classmark:  DAR 185: 52
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1899

To H. C. Watson   [5–11 January 1860]

Summary

Discusses the possibility of "convergence" occurring; believes it could be only very limited.

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Date:  [5–11 Jan 1860]
Classmark:  DAR 47: 136a (verso); The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/5: 77–87)
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-2639

DCP-LETT-3211A

Summary

Expresses his wish for a discussion of the geographic distribution of closely allied species. [3218.]

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Date:  
Classmark:  Texas Tech University Library, Lubbock, Texas, tipped into a first edition of Origin (QH365 .O2 1859)
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-3211A

To H. C. Watson   8 [August 1862]

Summary

Asks HCW’s help with his experiments on Lythrum salicaria, for which he needs flowers of the rare Lythrum hyssopifolia.

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Date:  8 [Aug 1862]
Classmark:  Archives of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library, Harvard University (bMs 7.10.2)
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-3646

To H. C. Watson   28 May [1864]

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Summary

Thanks HCW for Lythrum specimens.

CD has at last finished his Lythrum paper. ["Three forms of Lythrum", Collected papers 2: 106–31.]

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Date:  28 May [1864]
Classmark:  DAR 185: 51
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-4512

From H. C. Watson   [after 24 July 1861]

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Summary

Gives CD an instance of facts that can be read either way as to whether a plant (Veronica humifusa) is a species or a variety.

Author:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  [after 24 July 1861]
Classmark:  DAR 47: 162
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-13853

From H. C. Watson   [16 May 1864]

Summary

Cover containing some seeds mentioned in the letter to H. C. Watson, 28 May [1864], f.2 (S 4512).

Author:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  [16 May 1864]
Classmark:  DAR 142: 94
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-13891H

From H. C. Watson   [19 November 1854]

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Summary

In response to CD’s query, HCW says he cannot supply "any list of species as the flora of a single and sterile soil". Suggests a possible source of information, and provides some figures for Britain, but these apply to diverse soils.

Author:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  [19 Nov 1854]
Classmark:  DAR 205.9: 402
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1604

From H. C. Watson   20 November [1854]

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Summary

Sends a count of the number of species of flowering plants and ferns on the islands of Fayal and Flores in the Azores.

Author:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  20 Nov [1854]
Classmark:  DAR 205.4: 101
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1605

From H. C. Watson   11 July [1855]

Summary

Returns CD’s list of Azores plants with information on the distribution of the species added. Encloses a list, extracted from CD’s list, of those plants common to Europe and the Azores that were probably not introduced by man.

Author:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  11 July [1855]
Classmark:  DAR 181: 27
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1715

From H. C. Watson   13 August 1855

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Summary

Is having difficulties marking close species on the list of British plants.

In all his attempts to advance geographical botany he is stopped by the "application and signification of the word ""species"" " the use of which is both "indefinite and variable". He encloses his list of "Categories of Species".

Author:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  13 Aug 1855
Classmark:  DAR 98: A5–A6, DAR 9: 15A
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1740

From H. C. Watson   17 August 1855

Summary

Sends a catalogue of plants [missing] with the close species marked.

Author:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  17 Aug 1855
Classmark:  DAR 181: 28
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1743

From H. C. Watson   23 August 1855

Summary

Close species in large and small genera.

Artificiality of botanical classification.

Author:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  23 Aug 1855
Classmark:  DAR 181: 29
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1747

From H. C. Watson   2 October 1855

Summary

Expresses his general opinion on the relative closeness of species in large and small genera. Warns that the size of a genus is dependent upon the locality and extent of the flora studied, that definitions of close species are not consistent, and that peculiarities of botanical classification will influence any attempt to assess the comparative closeness of species in different genera.

Author:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  2 Oct 1855
Classmark:  DAR 181: 30
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1758

From H. C. Watson   11 October 1855

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Summary

Sends London catalogue of British plants with close species marked.

Charges E. Forbes with fraudulent appropriation of others’ work.

Comments on, and cites possible cases of, CD’s imagined rule that individuals of one or more species in a genus vary in some of those characters by which the species of that genus are distinguished.

Author:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  11 Oct 1855
Classmark:  DAR 47: 163a–b
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1764

From H. C. Watson   8 November 1855

Summary

Artificiality of orders and genera in botany.

Difficulties in numerical analysis of close species in large and small genera.

HCW has "pretty strong bias towards the view that species are not immutably distinct".

Author:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  8 Nov 1855
Classmark:  DAR 181: 31
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1775

From H. C. Watson   [after 23 March 1858]

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Summary

Extracts from MS of vol. 4 of HCW’s Cybele Britannica [1847–59] showing the diversity of views on species among botanists.

Author:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  [after 23 Mar 1858]
Classmark:  DAR 45: 16–17
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1808

From H. C. Watson   5 June 1856

Summary

Answers CD’s questions about plants common to U. S. and Britain and their distribution in Europe.

Variability of agrarian weeds.

Author:  Hewett Cottrell Watson
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  5 June 1856
Classmark:  DAR 181: 32
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-1891
Document type
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Darwin, C. R.disabled_by_default
Watson, H. C.disabled_by_default
Date
1854 (2)
1855 (8)
1856 (8)
1857 (4)
1858 (4)
1859 (2)
1860 (3)
1861 (4)
1862 (1)
1864 (3)
1882 (1)
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