306 BOTANY [CHAP. X 



Letter 631 you have been unknowingly led into error. I will continue, 

 as opportunities present themselves, to examine the many 

 peculiarities you have pointed out in this as well as others of 

 the Orchid family ; and at present I am looking forward with 

 anxiety for the maturation of the ovary of A. Loddigesii, which 

 will bear testimony to the veracity of the remarks I have 

 ventured to lay before you. 



Letter 632 To J. D. Hooker. 



Down, 1 8th [Nov. 1862]. 



Strange to say, I have only one little bother for you 

 to-day, and that is to let me know about what month flowers 

 appear in Acropera Loddigesii and luteola ; for I want extremely 

 to beg a few more flowers, and if I knew the time I would keep 

 a memorandum to remind you. Why I want these flowers is 

 (and I am much alarmed) that Mr. J. Scott, of Bot Garden 

 of Edinburgh ("do you know anything of him ?) has written 

 me a very long and clever letter, in which he confirms most 

 of my observations ; but tells me that with much difficulty 

 he managed to get pollen into orifice, or as far as mouth of 

 orifice, of six flowers of A. Loddigesii (the ovarium of which I 

 did not examine), and two pods set ; one he gathered, and 

 saw a very few ovules, as he thinks, on the large and mostly 

 rudimentary placenta. I shall be most curious to hear 

 whether the other pod produces a good lot of seed. He 

 says he regrets that he did not test the ovules with chemical 

 agents : does he mean tincture of iodine ? He suggests that 

 in a state of nature the viscid matter may come to the very 

 surface of stigmatic chamber, and so pollen-masses need not 

 be inserted. This is possible, but I should think improbable. 

 Altogether the case is very odd, and I am very uneasy, 

 for I cannot hope that A. Loddigesii is hermaphrodite and 

 A. luteola the male of the same species. Whenever I can 

 get Acropera would be a very good time for me to look at 

 Vanda in spirits, which you so kindly preserved for me. 



Letter 633 To J. Scott. 



The following is Darwin's reply to the above letter from Scott. In 

 the first edition of Fertilisation of Orchids (p. 209) he assumed that the 

 sexes in Acropera, as in Catasetum, were separate. In the second edition 

 (p. 172) he writes : " I was, however, soon convinced of my error by 

 Mr. Scott, who succeeded in artificially fertilising the flowers with their 



