I find several leaves are thus protected on the under surface and not on the upper.
"How can water injure the leaves if indeed this is at all the case?"
On this latter point he wrote to Sir Thomas Farrer:--
"I am now become mad about drops of water injuring leaves. Please ask Mr. Paine (Sir Thomas Farrer's gardener.) whether he believes, FROM HIS OWN EXPERIENCE, that drops of water injure leaves or fruit in his conservatories. It is said that the drops act as burning-glasses; if this is true, they would not be at all injurious on cloudy days. As he is so acute a man, I should very much like to hear his opinion. I remember when I grew hot-house orchids I was cautioned not to wet their leaves; but I never then thought on the subject.
"I enjoyed my visit greatly with you, and I am very sure that all England could not afford a kinder and pleasanter host."
Some years later he took up the subject again, and wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker (May 25, 1877):--
"I have been looking over my old notes about the "bloom" on plants, and I think that the subject is well worth pursuing, though I am very doubtful of any success. Are you inclined to aid me on the mere chance of success, for without your aid I could do hardly anything?"]
CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, June 4 [1877].
...I am now trying to make out the use or function of "bloom," or the waxy secretion on the leaves and fruit of plants, but am VERY doubtful whether I shall succeed. Can you give me any light? Are such plants commoner in warm than in colder climates? I ask because I often walk out in heavy rain, and the leaves of very few wild dicotyledons can be here seen with drops of water rolling off them like quick-silver. Whereas in my flower garden, greenhouse, and hot-houses there are several. Again, are bloom- protected plants common on your DRY western plains? Hooker THINKS that they are common at the Cape of Good Hope. It is a puzzle to me if they are common under very dry climates, and I find bloom very common on the Acacias and Eucalypti of Australia. Some of the Eucalypti which do not appear to be covered with bloom have the epidermis protected by a layer of some substance which is dissolved in boiling alcohol. Are there any bloom- protected leaves or fruit in the Arctic regions? If you can illuminate me, as you so often have done, pray do so; but otherwise do not bother yourself by answering.
Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO W. THISELTON DYER. Down, September 5 [1877].
My dear Dyer,
One word to thank you. I declare had it not been for your kindness, we should have broken down. As it is we have made out clearly that with some plants (chiefly succulent) the bloom checks evaporation--with some certainly prevents attacks of insects; with SOME sea-shore plants prevents injury from salt-water, and, I believe, with a few prevents injury from pure water resting on the leaves. This latter is as yet the most doubtful and the most interesting point in relation to the movements of plants...
CHARLES DARWIN TO F. MULLER. Down, July 4 [1881].
My dear Sir,
Your kindness is unbounded, and I cannot tell you how much your last letter (May 31) has interested me. I have piles of notes about the effect of water resting on leaves, and their movements (as I supposed) to shake off the drops. But I have not looked over these notes for a long time, and had come to think that perhaps my notion was mere fancy, but I had intended to begin experimenting as soon as I returned home; and now with your INVALUABLE letter about the position of the leaves of various plants during rain (I have one analogous case with Acacia from South Africa), I shall be stimulated to work in earnest.
VARIABILITY.
[The following letter refers to a subject on which my father felt the strongest interest:--the experimental investigation of the causes of variability. The experiments alluded to were to some extent planned out, and some preliminary work was begun in the direction indicated below, but the research was ultimately abandoned.]
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.H.