It is also just possible that the same plant would throw up, at different seasons different flower-scapes, and the marked plants would serve as evidence.
With many thanks, my dear sir, Yours sincerely, CH. DARWIN.
P.S.--I send by this post my paper on climbing plants, parts of which you might like to read.
[Sir Thomas Farrer and Dr. W. Ogle were also guided and encouraged by my father in their observations. The following refers to a paper by Sir Thomas Farrer, in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' 1868, on the fertilisation of the Scarlet Runner:]
CHARLES DARWIN TO T.H. FARRER. Down, September 15, 1868.
My dear Mr. Farrer,
I grieve to say that the MAIN features of your case are known. I am the sinner and described them some ten years ago. But I overlooked many details, as the appendage to the single stamen, and several other points. I send my notes, but I must beg for their return, as I have NO OTHER COPY. I quite agree, the facts are most striking, especially as you put them. Are you sure that the Hive-bee is the cutter? it is against my experience. If sure, make the point more prominent, or if not sure, erase it. I do not think the subject is quite new enough for the Linnean Society; but I dare say the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' or "Gardeners' Chronicle" would gladly publish your observations, and it is a great pity they should be lost. If you like I would send your paper to either quarter with a note. In this case you must give a title, and your name, and perhaps it would be well to premise your remarks with a line of reference to my paper stating that you had observed independently and more fully.
I have read my own paper over after an interval of several years, and am amused at the caution with which I put the case that the final end was for crossing distinct individuals, of which I was then as fully convinced as now, but I knew that the doctrine would shock all botanists. Now the opinion is becoming familiar.
To see penetration of pollen-tubes is not difficult, but in most cases requires some practice with dissecting under a one-tenth of an inch focal distance single lens; and just at first this will seem to you extremely difficult.
What a capital observer you are--a first-rate Naturalist has been sacrificed, or partly sacrificed to Public life.
Believe me, yours very sincerely, CH. DARWIN.
P.S.--If you come across any large Salvia, look at it--the contrivance is admirable. It went to my heart to tell a man who came here a few weeks ago with splendid drawings and MS. on Salvia, that the work had been all done in Germany. (Dr. W. Ogle, the observer of the fertilisation of Salvia here alluded to, published his results in the 'Pop. Science Review,' 1869. He refers both gracefully and gratefully to his relationship with my father in the introduction to his translation of Kerner's 'Flowers and their Unbidden Guests.')
[The following extract is from a letter, November 26th, 1868, to Sir Thomas Farrer, written as I learn from him, "in answer to a request for some advice as to the best modes of observation."
"In my opinion the best plan is to go on working and making copious notes, without much thought of publication, and then if the results turn out striking publish them. It is my impression, but I do not feel sure that I am right, that the best and most novel plan would be, instead of describing the means of fertilisation in particular plants, to investigate the part which certain structures play with all plants or throughout certain orders; for instance, the brush of hairs on the style, or the diadelphous condition of the stamens, in the Leguminosae, or the hairs within the corolla, etc. etc. Looking to your note, I think that this is perhaps the plan which you suggest.
"It is well to remember that Naturalists value observations far more than reasoning; therefore your conclusions should be as often as possible fortified by noticing how insects actually do the work."
In 1869, Sir Thomas Farrer corresponded with my father on the fertilisation of Passiflora and of Tacsonia.