DARWIN, Charles.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Insectivorous Plants. First edition, first issue, in particularly fresh condition. Darwin consulted leading physiologists and chemists in this experimental work to show that carnivorous plants adapted to trap and digest insects, enabling them to survive in poor soil. Two of the woodcuts (figures 7 and 8) are after drawings by Darwin himself, while several are after drawings by his sons, George and Francis.Darwin started researching insectivorous plants in 1860 after observing a sundew while resting in Sussex. "During subsequent years, whenever I had leisure, I pursued my experiments, and my book on 'Insectivorous Plants' was published in July 1875 - that is, sixteen years after my first observations. The delay in this case, as with all my other books, has been a great advantage to me; for a man after a long interval can criticise his own work, almost as well as if it were that of another person. The fact that a plant should secrete, when properly excited, a fluid containing an acid and ferment, closely analogous to the digestive fluid of an animal, was certainly a remarkable discovery" (van Wyhe). The finished book discussed the whole range of such plants, their adaptations and evolutionary relationships, and their specialized digestive processes.

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