AYRES, P. The aliveness of plants: the Darwins at the dawn of plant science . Pickering & Chatto, London: 2008. Pp 256. Price £ 60 (hardback). ISBN 978 1 85196 970 8 (original) (raw)
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Much of the focus of Darwin’s bicentenary has been on the origin of species by natural selection, emerging evolutionary thought and the key scientists with whom he corresponded. His botanical contributions to science have occupied a lesser role in the celebrations, and female correspondents an even more ephemeral position in the so-called ‘Darwin enterprise’. It has been suggested that there is a need to draw the curtains behind which these women stand and give them a ‘present voice’. This paper considers the work of two American women botanists who contributed, through correspondence networks, to the insectivorous plant studies of Darwin, his botanical contemporaries and subsequent plant studies.
'Adam's laburnum' (or Cytisus adami), produced by accident in 1825 by Jean-Louis Adam, a nurseryman in Vitry, became a commercial success within the plant trade for its striking mix of yellow and purple flowers. After it came to the attention of members of La Société d'Horticulture de Paris, the tree gained enormous fame as a potential instance of the much sought-after 'graft hybrid', a hypothetical idea that by grafting one plant onto another, a mixture of the two could be produced. As I show in this paper, many eminent botanists and gardeners, including Charles Darwin, both experimented with Adam's laburnum and argued over how it might have been produced and what light, if any, it shed on the laws of heredity. Despite Jean-Louis Adam's position and status as a nurseryman active within the Parisian plant trade, a surprising degree of doubt and scepticism was attached to his testimony on how the tree had been produced in his nursery. This doubt, I argue, helps us to trace the complex negotiations of authority that constituted debates over plant heredity in the early 19th century and that were introduced with a new generation of gardening and horticultural periodicals.
Trees, Coral, and Seaweed: An Interpretation of Sketches Found in Darwin's Papers
Trees, Coral, and Seaweed: An Interpretation of Sketches Found in Darwin’s Papers, 2020
The sole diagram in On the Origin of Species is generally considered to be merely an illustration of Darwin's ideas, but such an interpretation ignores the fact that Dar-win himself expressly stated that the diagram helped him to discover and express his ideas. This article demonstrates that developing the so-called "tree diagram" substantially aided Darwin's heuristics. This demonstration is based on an interpretation of the diagram and of 17 sketches found in Darwin's scientific papers. The key to this interpretation is the meaning that Darwin assigned to the graphic elements (points, lines, and spaces) he used to construct the preliminary sketches and the diagram. I argue that each of the sketches contributed to the shaping of Darwin's ideas and that, in their succession, each added new elements that ultimately resulted in the fully developed published diagram.