DARWIN, Charles.

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The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species. First edition, presentation copy, inscribed on the title page, "With the compliments of the author". The inscription is in Darwin's own hand rather than one of Murray's clerks.Different Forms of Flowers was published in a first edition of 1,250 copies on 9 July 1877. There was only a single issue, with the publisher's catalogue dated either January or March 1877, here the latter, without priority. Darwin explained in his autobiography that "this book consists chiefly of the several papers on heterostyled flowers originally published by the Linnean Society, corrected, with much new matter added, together with observations on some other cases in which the same plant bears two kinds of flowers. As before remarked, no little discovery of mine ever gave me so much pleasure as the making out the meaning of heterostyled flowers" (Life and Letters I, p. 78). Freeman remarks that, "had Darwin not chosen such genetically complex examples, he might have approached more nearly to an understanding of the laws of particulate inheritance". Regardless, it remains a seminal text on plant reproduction, adaptation, and evolution. It was translated into French and German during Darwin's lifetime, followed by four further languages after his death.

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