I have marked a lot of plants, and expected to find the so-called male plant barren; but judging from the feel of the capsules, this is not the case, and I am very much surprised at the difference in the size of the pollen...If it should prove that the so-called male plants produce less seed than the so-called females, what a beautiful case of gradation from hermaphrodite to unisexual condition it will be! If they produce about equal number of seed, how perplexing it will be.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, December 17 [1860?].
...I have just been ordering a photograph of myself for a friend; and have ordered one for you, and for heaven's sake oblige me, and burn that now hanging up in your room.--It makes me look atrociously wicked.
...In the spring I must get you to look for long pistils and short pistils in the rarer species of Primula and in some allied Genera. It holds with P. Sinensis. You remember all the fuss I made on this subject last spring;well, the other day at last I had time to weigh the seeds, and by Jove the plants of primroses and cowslip with short pistils and large grained pollen (Thus the plants which he imagined to be tending towards a male condition were more productive than the supposed females.) are rather more fertile than those with long pistils, and small-grained pollen. I find that they require the action of insects to set them, and I never will believe that these differences are without some meaning.
Some of my experiments lead me to suspect that the large-grained pollen suits the long pistils and the small-grained pollen suits the short pistils; but I am determined to see if I cannot make out the mystery next spring.
How does your book on plants brew in your mind? Have you begun it?...
Remember me most kindly to Oliver. He must be astonished at not having a string of questions, I fear he will get out of practice!
[The Primula-work was finished in the autumn of 1861, and on November 8th he wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker:--"I have sent my paper on dimorphism in Primula to the Linn. Soc. I shall go up and read it whenever it comes on; I hope you may be able to attend, for I do not suppose many will care a penny for the subject."With regard to the reading of the paper (on November 21st), he wrote to the same friend:--"I by no means thought that I produced a "tremendous effect" in the Linn.
Soc., but by Jove the Linn. Soc. produced a tremendous effect on me, for Icould not get out of bed till late next evening, so that I just crawled home. I fear I must give up trying to read any paper or speak; it is a horrid bore, I can do nothing like other people."To Dr. Gray he wrote, (December 1861):--"You may rely on it, I will send you a copy of my Primula paper as soon as I can get one; but I believe it will not be printed till April 1st, and therefore after my Orchid Book. I care more for your and Hooker's opinion than for that of all the rest of the world, and for Lyell's on geological points. Bentham and Hooker thought well of my paper when read; but no one can judge of evidence by merely hearing a paper."The work on Primula was the means of bringing my father in contact with the late Mr. John Scott, then working as a gardener in the Botanic Gardens at Edinburgh,--an employment which he seems to have chosen in order to gratify his passion for natural history. He wrote one or two excellent botanical papers, and ultimately obtained a post in India. (While in India he made some admirable 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 Ihave 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.