Charles Darwin : his life told in an autobiographical chapter and in a selected series of his published letters / edited by his son, Francis Darwin.

  • Charles Darwin
Date:
1902
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Charles Darwin : his life told in an autobiographical chapter and in a selected series of his published letters / edited by his son, Francis Darwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    Orcldds, in wliicli I showed how perfect were the means for cross-fertilisation, and here I shall show how important are the results. I was led to make, during eleven years, the numerous experiments recorded in this volume, by a mere accidental observation; and indeed it required the accident to be repeated before my attention was thoroughly aroused to the remarkable fact that seedlings of self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in the first generation, in height and vigour to seedlings of cross-fertilised parentage. I hope also to republish a revised edition of my book on Orchids, and here- after my papers on dimorphic and trimorphic plants, together with some additional observations on allied points which I never have had time to arrange. My strength will then probably be exhausted, and I shall be ready to exclaim Nunc dimittis. Written May 1st, 1881.—The Effects of Cross- and Self- Fertilisation was published in the autumn of 1876 ; and the results there arrived at explain, as I believe, the endless and wonderful contrivances for the transportal of pollen from one plant to another of the same species. I now believe, how- ever, chiefly from the observations of Hermann Miiller, that I ought to have insisted more strongly than I did on the many adaptations for self-fertilisation; though I was well aware of many such adaptations. A much enlarged edition of my Fertilisation of Orchids was publisbed in 1877. In this same year The Different Forms of Flowers, &c., appeared, and in 1880 a second edition. This book consists chiefly of the several papers on Hetero-styled flowers origi- nally published by the Linnean Society, corrected, with much new matter added, together with observations on some other cases in whicb the same plant bears two kinds of flowers. As before remarked, no little discovery of mine ever gave me so much pleasure as the making out the meaning of hetero- styled flowers. The results of crossing such flowers m an illegitimate manner, I believe to be very importaut, as bearing on the sterility of hybrids; although these results have been noticed by only a few persons. In 1879 I had a translation of Dr. Ernst Krause s Life of Erasmus Darioin published, and I added a sketch of his character and habits from material in my possession. Many persons have been mucb interested by this little life, and I am surprised that only 800 or 900 copies were sold. _ In 1880 I published, with [my son] Frank s assistance our Power of Movement in Plants. This was a tough piece of work The book bears somewhat the same relation to my
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