Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Autograph letter signed ('Ch. Darwin') to [Thomas Rivers], Down, 1 February [1863]
Four pages, 202 x 126mm, bifolium, printed address. Provenance: The Property of a Lady; Sotheby's, 23 & 24 July 1987, lot 360.

'... how inexplicable the laws of inheritance are': on 'stomata' in leaves, the physiognomy of North Americans, 'weeping' trees and bud-variation. Darwin opens by responding to a question from Rivers about the 'lungs' of plants and their position, basing his information on a 'higher authority' than his own observations (in fact Gray’s First lessons in botany and vegetable physiology): 'The “stomata” or mouths, which by their lips have power of opening & closing, & which when opened put the spaces within the leaf into free communication with the open air, are far more abundant on the lower than on the upper surface of leaf'; he gives calculated numbers of stomata for white lilies and apples, 'in some plants 170,000 to the square inch!'. After an interjection of his wonder at 'the American type of features' (a response to Rivers' discussion of the effect of soil and climate on inhabitants of North America), he goes on with a new query: 'I am taking “Weeping trees”, as an example how inexplicable the laws of inheritance are; some weeping trees reproducing themselves almost truly by seed, & some quite failing to do so': he asks what information Rivers can provide about seedlings from these trees; and also whether he has ever 'sowed from a sporting branch or bud (i.e. case of bud-variation)'. DCP-LETT-3962.