The Life and Letters-2 [220]
observations on expression for my father.) He died in 1880.
A few phrases may be quoted from letters to Sir J.D. Hooker, showing my father's estimate of Scott:--
"If you know, do please tell me who is John Scott of the Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh; I have been corresponding largely with him; he is no common man."
"If he had leisure he would make a wonderful observer; to my judgment I have come across no one like him."
"He has interested me strangely, and I have formed a very high opinion of his intellect. I hope he will accept pecuniary assistance from me; but he has hitherto refused." (He ultimately succeeded in being allowed to pay for Mr. Scott's passage to India.)
"I know nothing of him excepting from his letters; these show remarkable talent, astonishing perseverance, much modesty, and what I admire, determined difference from me on many points."
So highly did he estimate Scott's abilities that he formed a plan (which however never went beyond an early stage of discussion) of employing him to work out certain problems connected with intercrossing.
The following letter refers to my father's investigations on Lythrum (He was led to this, his first case of trimorphism by Lecoq's 'Geographie Botanique,' and this must have consoled him for the trick this work played him in turning out to be so much larger than he expected. He wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker: "Here is a good joke: I saw an extract from Lecoq, 'Geograph. Bot.,' and ordered it and hoped that it was a good sized pamphlet, and nine thick volumes have arrived!"), a plant which reveals even a more wonderful condition of sexual complexity than that of Primula. For in Lythrum there are not merely two, but three castes, differing structurally and physiologically from each other:]
CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, August 9 [1862].
My dear Gray,
It is late at night, and I am going to write briefly, and of course to beg a favour.
The Mitchella very good, but pollen apparently equal-sized. I have just examined Hottonia, grand difference in pollen. Echium vulgare, a humbug, merely a case like Thymus. But I am almost stark staring mad over Lythrum (On another occasion he wrote (to Dr. Gray) with regard to Lythrum: "I must hold hard, otherwise I shall spend my life over dimorphism."); if I can prove what I fully believe, it is a grand case of TRIMORPHISM, with three different pollens and three stigmas; I have castrated and fertilised above ninety flowers, trying all the eighteen distinct crosses which are possible within the limits of this one species! I cannot explain, but I feel sure you would think it a grand case. I have been writing to Botanists to see if I can possibly get L. hyssopifolia, and it has just flashed on me that you might have Lythrum in North America, and I have looked to your Manual. For the love of heaven have a look at some of your species, and if you can get me seed, do; I want much to try species with few stamens, if they are dimorphic; Nesaea verticillata I should expect to be trimorphic. Seed! Seed! Seed! I should rather like seed of Mitchella. But oh, Lythrum!
Your utterly mad friend, C. DARWIN.
P.S.--There is reason in my madness, for I can see that to those who already believe in change of species, these facts will modify to a certain extent the whole view of Hybridity. (A letter to Dr. Gray (July, 1862) bears on this point: "A few days ago I made an observation which has surprised me more than it ought to do--it will have to be repeated several times, but I have scarcely a doubt of its accuracy. I stated in my Primula paper that the long-styled form of Linum grandiflorum was utterly sterile with its own pollen; I have lately been putting the pollen of the two forms on the stigma of the SAME flower; and it strikes me as truly wonderful, that the stigma distinguishes the pollen; and is penetrated by the tubes of the one and not by those of the other; nor are the tubes exserted. Or (which is the same thing) the stigma of the one form acts on and is acted on by pollen, which produces not
A few phrases may be quoted from letters to Sir J.D. Hooker, showing my father's estimate of Scott:--
"If you know, do please tell me who is John Scott of the Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh; I have been corresponding largely with him; he is no common man."
"If he had leisure he would make a wonderful observer; to my judgment I have come across no one like him."
"He has interested me strangely, and I have formed a very high opinion of his intellect. I hope he will accept pecuniary assistance from me; but he has hitherto refused." (He ultimately succeeded in being allowed to pay for Mr. Scott's passage to India.)
"I know nothing of him excepting from his letters; these show remarkable talent, astonishing perseverance, much modesty, and what I admire, determined difference from me on many points."
So highly did he estimate Scott's abilities that he formed a plan (which however never went beyond an early stage of discussion) of employing him to work out certain problems connected with intercrossing.
The following letter refers to my father's investigations on Lythrum (He was led to this, his first case of trimorphism by Lecoq's 'Geographie Botanique,' and this must have consoled him for the trick this work played him in turning out to be so much larger than he expected. He wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker: "Here is a good joke: I saw an extract from Lecoq, 'Geograph. Bot.,' and ordered it and hoped that it was a good sized pamphlet, and nine thick volumes have arrived!"), a plant which reveals even a more wonderful condition of sexual complexity than that of Primula. For in Lythrum there are not merely two, but three castes, differing structurally and physiologically from each other:]
CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, August 9 [1862].
My dear Gray,
It is late at night, and I am going to write briefly, and of course to beg a favour.
The Mitchella very good, but pollen apparently equal-sized. I have just examined Hottonia, grand difference in pollen. Echium vulgare, a humbug, merely a case like Thymus. But I am almost stark staring mad over Lythrum (On another occasion he wrote (to Dr. Gray) with regard to Lythrum: "I must hold hard, otherwise I shall spend my life over dimorphism."); if I can prove what I fully believe, it is a grand case of TRIMORPHISM, with three different pollens and three stigmas; I have castrated and fertilised above ninety flowers, trying all the eighteen distinct crosses which are possible within the limits of this one species! I cannot explain, but I feel sure you would think it a grand case. I have been writing to Botanists to see if I can possibly get L. hyssopifolia, and it has just flashed on me that you might have Lythrum in North America, and I have looked to your Manual. For the love of heaven have a look at some of your species, and if you can get me seed, do; I want much to try species with few stamens, if they are dimorphic; Nesaea verticillata I should expect to be trimorphic. Seed! Seed! Seed! I should rather like seed of Mitchella. But oh, Lythrum!
Your utterly mad friend, C. DARWIN.
P.S.--There is reason in my madness, for I can see that to those who already believe in change of species, these facts will modify to a certain extent the whole view of Hybridity. (A letter to Dr. Gray (July, 1862) bears on this point: "A few days ago I made an observation which has surprised me more than it ought to do--it will have to be repeated several times, but I have scarcely a doubt of its accuracy. I stated in my Primula paper that the long-styled form of Linum grandiflorum was utterly sterile with its own pollen; I have lately been putting the pollen of the two forms on the stigma of the SAME flower; and it strikes me as truly wonderful, that the stigma distinguishes the pollen; and is penetrated by the tubes of the one and not by those of the other; nor are the tubes exserted. Or (which is the same thing) the stigma of the one form acts on and is acted on by pollen, which produces not