From J. D. Hooker [23 March 1862]
Summary
Lighthearted thoughts on "the development of an Aristocracy" after a visit to Walcot Hall, Shropshire.
On CD’s point about the effect of changed conditions on the reproductive organs, JDH does not see why this is not "itself a variation, not necessarily induced by domestication, but accompanying some variety artificially selected".
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [23 Mar 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 27–9; American Philosophical Society Library (Hooker papers, B/H76.2) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3480 |
To J. D. Hooker 22 [March 1862]
Summary
Asks JDH to correct names of two species of Calanthe.
Note from Asa Gray ends "Yours cordially", so CD hopes he is forgiven.
His Catasetum paper will be read 3 Apr [Collected papers 2: 63–70].
Plants and seeds sent will be of great use, especially Lythrum, which according to J. P. E. Vaucher seems grand case of trimorphism. Asks what sort of man Vaucher is.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 22 [Mar 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 146 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3481 |
From J. D. Hooker [23–5 March 1862]
Summary
Identifies Calanthe masuca.
Asa Gray would not quarrel with them – "snubbing from us may have done him more good than our sympathy".
If CD means the old Vaucher, he was considered a very accurate, acute, able observer.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [23–5 Mar 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 30 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3483 |
To J. D. Hooker 26 [March 1862]
Summary
Both JDH’s and Bates’s letters are excellent. JDH has said all that can be said against direct effect of conditions, but CD still sticks to his own and Bates’s side. CD should have done what JDH suggests (since naturally he is pleased to attribute little to conditions) – viz., started on the fundamental principle that variation is innate and stated that afterwards, perhaps, this principle would be made explicable. Variation will show that "use and disuse" have some effect. Does not believe in perfect reversion. Demurs at JDH’s "centrifugal variation"; the doctrine of the good of diversification amply accounts for variation being centrifugal.
The wonderful mechanism of Mormodes ignea.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 26 [Mar 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 147 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3484 |
From J. D. Hooker [after 26 March 1862?]
Summary
Variations are centrifugal because the chances are a million to one that identity of form once lost will return.
In the human race, we find no reversion "that would lead us to confound a man with his ancestors".
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [after 26 Mar 1862?] |
Classmark: | DAR 47: 214 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3486 |
From J. D. Hooker [7 April 1862]
Summary
Will hope to be able to send Vanilla flowers in a day or two.
How is CD after his tremendous effect on the placid Linneans? ["Sexual forms of Catasetum", Collected papers 2: 63–70; read 3 Apr 1862.]
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [7 Apr 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 32 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3495 |
To J. D. Hooker 9 [April 1862]
Summary
On Vanilla.
Asks JDH to observe whether he has both long- and short-styled form of Menyanthes
and whether he has "Saxifrages with long hairs glandular at the tip".
The Linnean Society session made him vomit all night. Fears he must give up trying to read papers or speak. "It is a horrid bore. I can do nothing like other people."
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 9 [Apr 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 148 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3500 |
From J. D. Hooker [15 April 1862]
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [15 Apr 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 31 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3506 |
From J. D. Hooker [17 May 1862]
Summary
Discusses Leschenaultia, finds no stigmatic surface in the indusium.
Gives information on where to obtain paper for drying plants and where to obtain a microscope.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [17 May 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 261.11: 28 (EH 88206079) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3527 |
To J. D. Hooker 1 May [1862]
Summary
Asks JDH to look at stigma of Leschenaultia biloba; it seems certain there is no stigma within the bud. Case would be important.
Singular case of peculiar structure now remodified into the functional condition of a Campanula.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 1 May [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 153 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3529 |
From J. D. Hooker [16 May 1862]
Summary
Has dissected Leschenaultia biloba flowers. Finds no stigmatic surface in the indusium. Describes what is the apparent stigma but has found no pollen-tubes to confirm it as the real one.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [16 May 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 261.11: 27 (EH 88206079)) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3530 |
From J. D. Hooker [5 May 1862]
Summary
Household problems – stolen silver, maids. His house for some months has had reputation for being not a little disreputable.
On Cameroon plants.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [5 May 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 33, 134a |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3537 |
To J. D. Hooker 9 May [1862]
Summary
Sorry to hear of JDH’s household troubles.
Will try to get a couple of flowers of Leschenaultia to send him.
"What a good case that of the Cameroons"; the 4000ft [elevation] is much to CD’s "private satisfaction".
Sends JDH a copy of Orchids.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 9 May [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 149 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3541 |
To J. D. Hooker 15 [May 1862]
Summary
Yellow anthers of Heterocentron produce on the same plant thrice as many seeds as the crimson anthers. Crimson anther seeds produce dwarf plants, others rise high up. Monochaetum ensiferum facts are still more strange. Wants to investigate the case, and asks for a plant of the Melastomataceae just before flowering.
Has JDH a Rhododendron boothii from Bhutan with pistil bent the wrong way?
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 15 [May 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 151 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3548 |
To J. D. Hooker [18 May 1862]
Summary
Leschenaultia seems very odd. Will try with pollen left on for 48 hours. Illustrates diversity of structures for same purpose.
Bentham’s and Oliver’s good opinion of Orchids is reassuring.
Anxious to experiment on Melastomataceae; thinks it will give important results.
Wants Leschenaultia formosa to try whether viscid outside surface can be fertilised.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | [18 May 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 154 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3558 |
From J. D. Hooker 23 May 1862
Summary
Does not know Rhododendron boothii; is sending Rhododendron keysii, a remarkable form. Will send Melastomataceae anon.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 23 May 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 36 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3567 |
From J. D. Hooker [29 May 1862]
Summary
Sends two flowers of Vanilla and two Melastomataceae.
Has worked on Cameroon list ["Mountain flowering plants and ferns of the Cameroons", in Burton, Abeokuta and the Cameroons Mountains (1863) 2: 270–7]
and Genera plantarum.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [29 May 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 37 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3574 |
To J. D. Hooker 30 May [1862]
Summary
Has received Melastoma and Vanilla.
Has seen again the two sets of plants of Heterocentron raised from two lots of pollen from same flower – a marvellous difference in stature.
"But oh Lord what will become of my book on variation: I am involved in a multiplicity of experiments."
Observations on Viola.
CD’s fancied dimorphism of Oxalis is all a confounded mistake; only great variability in length of pistils.
Found Henslow’s life [L. Jenyns, Memoir of the Rev. J. S. Henslow (1862)] interesting but fears the public will think it dull.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 30 May [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 152 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3575 |
From J. D. Hooker 9 June 1862
Summary
Oliver has written able paper on dimorphism for Natural History Review [n.s. 2 (1862): 235–43].
CD’s account of Viola is novel and interesting.
Has finished Cameroon mountain plants.
Jury work at exhibition.
Domestic problems – wife is ill, no cook, etc.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 9 June 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 40–1 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3593 |
To J. D. Hooker 11 June [1862]
Summary
Sorry to hear of Mrs Hooker’s health and domestic problems. Wishes natural selection had produced neuters who would not flirt or marry.
Will be eager to hear Cameroon results.
Wishes JDH would discuss the "mundane glacial period". Still believes it will be "the turning point of all recent geographical distribution".
Pollen placed for 65 hours on apparent (CD still thinks real) stigma of Leschenaultia has not protruded a vestige of a tube.
"Oliver the omniscient" has produced an article in Botanische Zeitung with accurate account of all CD saw in Viola.
Asa Gray’s "red-hot" praise of Orchids [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 34 (1862): 138–51].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 11 June [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 155 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3597 |
letter | (84) |
Hooker, J. D. | (44) |
Darwin, C. R. | (40) |
Darwin, C. R. | (44) |
Hooker, J. D. | (40) |
Darwin, C. R. | |
Hooker, J. D. | (84) |