Charles Darwin | Letter signed, to J.J. Weir, on grafted hybrid trees, 5 July 1875

Charles Darwin

Letter signed, to J.J. Weir, asking for additional information on the flowering of distinctive specimen trees as part of his research for a new edition of The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, with a six-word addition in Darwin’s hand, 3 pages, 8vo (205 x 127 mm), headed stationery of Down, Beckenham, Kent, 5 July 1875, light creasing, rust mark

“…Am I right in supposing that none of the flowers were of a hybrid or mingled nature like those of C. Adami? for this makes your case very peculiar? Your letter is dated 1870, and I should like to know whether the grafted C. purpureus produced a twig bearing yellow flowers during this or some previous year….”

A FINE EXAMPLE OF CORRESPONDENCE FEEDING INTO DARWIN’S RESEARCH. Darwin had discussed the laburnum-broom hybrid Cytisus adami in the Variations (1868). The naturalist John Jenner Weir (1822–1894) mentioned in a letter to Darwin in the summer of 1870 an example that appeared to contradict Darwin's comments on the plant. Weir's brother had grafted purple broom (Chamaecytisus purpureus) onto a stock of Scotch laburnum (Laburnum alpinum) with its distinctive pendulous yellow flowers, and the resultant plant had both purple and yellow flowers but (unlike Cytisus adami) no intermediate forms. Darwin evidently kept a record of Weir’s observation and in this letter, five years after Weir's original comments on the plant, he writes to check whether there had been any developments in the intervening period. Weir replied twice in the two days that followed, confirming that the tree had continued to flower in the manner previously described, but that the purple blooms did not produce seed.

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DCP-LETT-10043