lowers were fatal to my notion of there being no eternal hermaphrodites. First let me say how evidence goes. You will remember my facts going to show that kidney-beans require visits of bees to be fertilised. This has been positively stated to be the case with Lathyrus grandiflorus, and has been very partially verified by me. Sir W. Macarthur tells me that Erythrina will hardly seed in Australia without the petals are moved as if by bee. I have just met the statement that, with common bean, when the humble-bees bite holes at the base of the flower, and therefore cease visiting the mouth of the corolla, "hardly a bean will set." But now comes a much more curious statement, that [in] 1842-43, "since bees were established at Wellington (New Zealand), clover seeds all over the settlement, WHICH IT DID NOT BEFORE." (587/1. See Letter 362, Volume I.) The writer evidently has no idea what the connection can be. Now I cannot help at once connecting this statement (and all the foregoing statements in some degree support each other, as all have been advanced without any sort of theory) with the remarkable absence of Papilionaceous plants in N. Zealand. I see in your list Clianthus, Carmichaelia (four species), a new genus, a shrub, and Edwardsia (is latter Papilionaceous?). Now what I want to know is whether any of these have flowers as small as clover; for if they have large flowers they may be visited by humble-bees, which I think I remember do exist in New Zealand; and which humble-bees would not visit the smaller clover. Even the very minute little yellow clover in England has every flower visited and revisited by hive-bees, as I know by experience. Would it not be a curious case of correlation if it could be shown to be probable that herbaceous and small Leguminosae do not exist because when [their] seeds [are] washed ashore (!!!) no small bees exist there. Though this latter fact must be ascertained. I may not prove anything, but does it not seem odd that so many quite independent facts, or rather statements, should point all in one direction, viz., that bees are necessary to the fertilisation of Papilionaceous flowers?
LETTER 588. TO JOHN LUBBOCK (Lord Avebury). Sunday [1859].
Do you remember calling my attention to certain flowers in the truss of Pelargoniums not being true, or not having the dark shade on the two upper petals? I believe it was Lady Lubbock's observation. I find, as I expected, it is always the central or sub-central flower; but what is far more curious, the nectary, which is blended with the peduncle of the flowers, gradually lessens and quite disappears (588/1. This fact is mentioned in Maxwell Masters' "Vegetable Teratology" (Ray Society's Publications), 1869, page 221.), as the dark shade on the two upper petals disappears. Compare the stalk in the two enclosed parcels, in each of which there is a perfect flower.
Now, if your gardener will not be outrageous, do look over your geraniums and send me a few trusses, if you can find any, having the flowers without the marks, sending me some perfect flowers on same truss. The case seems to me rather a pretty one of correlation of growth; for the calyx also becomes slightly modified in the flowers without marks.
LETTER 589. TO MAXWELL MASTERS. Down, April 7th [1860].
I hope that you will excuse the liberty which I take in writing to you and begging a favour. I have been very much interested by the abstract (too brief) of your lecture at the Royal Institution. Many of the facts alluded to are full of interest for me. But on one point I should be infinitely obliged if you could procure me any information: namely, with respect to sweet-peas. I am a great believer in the natural crossing of individuals of the same species. But I have been assured by Mr. Cattell (589/1. The nurseryman he generally dealt with.), of Westerham, that the several varieties of sweet-pea can be raised close together for a number of years without intercrossing. But on the other hand he stated that they go over the beds, and pull up any false plant, which they very naturally attribute to wrong seeds getting mixed in the lot.