ALS signed “Charles Darwin,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 5 x 8, Down letterhead, November 27, [1861]. Handwritten letter to horticulturalist Dorothy Fanny Nevill, who supplied Darwin with rare plants for his research and experimentation. In full: "I will not attempt to thank your Ladyship for all your kindness, for it is beyond my power—I am pleased to hear that my Books have at all interested you; but I fear my little Orchid book will be dry. This summer when at the sea, I meant merely to write a paper for some scientific journal, but the subject grew on me till my M.S. got rather too long for a paper. I am convinced that orchids have a wicked power of witchcraft, for I ought all these months to be working at the dry old bones of poultry, pigeons & rabbits, instead of intensely admiring beautiful orchids.—I mention all this, because, though I can hardly bear to write the words, I must beg your Ladyship not to send any more of your treasures; though perhaps at some future period I may indulge myself with the examination of a few more Orchids—I will not forget your Ladyship's most generous offer to give me other flowers, if I require them for observation, & I have no doubt that I shall some time be a beggar again.—
I am truly obliged to your Ladyship for taking the trouble to write to Mr. Veitch; who has already sent me some orchids & with much generosity refused all payment for cut flowers.—I see in 'Cottage Gardener' of this morning, an account of the beauties of Dangstein, which I shall now read with interest.
If your Ladyship should meet Mr. Knox I hope that you will remember me to him: I spent many years ago a very pleasant morning with him & Sir Philip Egerton at the Zoological Gardens." He adds a postscript: "Since writing I have reason to hope that I shall receive a flower of Mormodes from Mr. Rucker of Wandsworth." In fine condition.
Recorded by the Darwin Correspondence Project as Letter no. 3414F.
Darwin's inquiries into insect pollination in 1861 led to his studies of wild orchids, in which he observed the adaptation of their flowers to attract specific moths to each species and ensure cross fertilization. He published his findings in 1862 in the lengthily titled 'On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects, and On the Good Effects of Intercrossing,' known more simply as 'Fertilisation of Orchids,' which marked his first detailed demonstration of the power of natural selection to explain complex ecological relationships. Famously, he predicted that the long nectar spur of the Madagascan orchid Angraecum sesquipedale must be pollinated by a then-unknown insect with an equally long proboscis—a conjecture spectacularly confirmed two decades later when such a moth was finally discovered.
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