Botanists -- United States -- Correspondence; Gray, Asa, 1810-1888 -- Correspondence
What do you and Dr. Müller say to Bornet’s memoir, on the nature of
lichens? His exposition is so clear that, if he is an honest and good
investigator,--as I cannot well doubt,--his conclusions carry
conviction.
My sheet fills, and leaves now barely room for Mrs. Gray’s messages of
kindest remembrances to yourself and to Madame De Candolle, in which I
beg to join. Long may you flourish, and much good work yet do. For one
thing, pray print the list of botanical names!
Ever yours,
A. GRAY.
November 26.
... I am going this morning to witness the nuptials of my colleague and
friend Professor Sargent and a charming young lady of Boston; and, on
the chance of their having a day in Geneva, I wish to introduce the
happy couple to you and Madame De Candolle. They will tell you much of
me, and of the satisfying and I trust useful sort of life I an now
leading. Some evidence of renewed botanical activity in the form of a
couple of botanical papers just issued here, too bulky to send well by
post, I will cause to reach you by way of Paris.
Professor Sargent is given to horticulture and arboriculture. He not
only takes charge of the university Botanic Garden, but also of a recent
and noble foundation for an arboretum, from which much may in due time
be expected.
It is most pleasant and hopeful when, as in the present instance, a
young man of means and best social position chooses to devote his time
and energies to practical scientific ends, rather than to business or
pleasure. You are more accustomed to that at Geneva than we are here in
America.
I know that, before this can reach you, I shall have occasion to write
to you, and to announce the reception of the last volume of the
“Prodromus,” now on the way to me. So I have only to add that I am
always
Very sincerely yours,
ASA GRAY.
TO CHARLES DARWIN.
May 12, 1874.
... I sent to Hooker to forward to you two articles in the “Nation,” on
Insectivorous Plants, written to reclaim your work from Bennett, who
began to appropriate it, etc., etc.
It is already leading to discovery. A physician in Carolina, a good
observer, already writes me that in S. variolaris, the best of
Sarracenias, he thinks he finds the watery liquid anæsthetic (??) and
the sweet secretion not. But he says there is a line of sweet, a trail,
running from the sweet rim down the edge of the wing outside nearly to
the ground, which lures up ants (with which Wyman tells me the pitchers
are crowded), just like the train of Indian corn which hunters scatter
along the ground to lure wild turkeys into the trap! Does not that beat
all!
Also my articles here resulted in the discovery related in the paper
inclosed. The take-off of Thomson’s germs from another planet is good.
June 16.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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