286 



Letter 614 



BOTANY 



[Chap. X 



To John Lubbock (Lord Avebury). 



Cliff Cottage, Bournemouth, Wednesday, Sept. 3rd [1862]. 



I beg a million pardons. Abuse me to any degree, but for- 

 give me : it is all an illusion 1 (but almost excusable) about the 

 bees. I do so hope that you have not wasted any time from my 

 stupid blunder. I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees. 



Fig. 10. — Diagram of Cruciferous Flower. 

 Letter 615 To J. D. Hooker. 



Cliff Cottage, Bournemouth, Sept. nth, 1862. 



You once told me that Cruciferous flowers were anomalous 

 in alternation of parts, and had given rise to some theory of 

 de^doublement. 



1 H. Miiller, Fertilisation of Flowers, p. 186, describes hive-bees visiting 

 Trifolium pratense for the sake of the pollen. Darwin may perhaps have 

 supposed that these were the variety of bees whose proboscis was long 

 enough to reach the nectar. In Cross and Self Fertilisation, p. 361, Darwin 

 describes hive-bees apparently searching for a secretion on the calyx. In the 

 same passage in Cross and Self Fertilisation he quotes Miiller as stating 

 that hive-bees obtain nectar from red clover by breaking apart the petals. 

 This seems to us a misinterpretation of the Befruchtung der Blumen, p. 224. 





