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The Various Contrivances By Which Orchids Are Fertilised By Insects
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This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1862
6 people are currently reading
159 people want to read
About the author
Charles Darwin
2,340 books3,376 followersCharles Robert Darwin of Britain revolutionized the study of biology with his theory, based on natural selection; his most famous works include
On the Origin of Species
(1859) and
The Descent of Man
(1871).
Chiefly Asa Gray of America advocated his theories.
Works of Jacques Martin Barzun include Darwin, Marx, Wagner (1941).
Charles Robert Darwin, an eminent English collector and geologist, proposed and provided scientific evidence of common ancestors for all life over time through the process that he called. The scientific community and the public in his lifetime accepted the facts that occur and then in the 1930s widely came to see the primary explanation of the process that now forms modernity. In modified form, the foundational scientific discovery of Darwin provides a unifying logical explanation for the diversity of life.
Darwin developed his interest in history and medicine at Edinburgh University and then theology at Cambridge. His five-year voyage on the Beagle established him as a geologist, whose observations and supported uniformitarian ideas of Charles Lyell, and publication of his journal made him as a popular author. Darwin collected wildlife and fossils on the voyage, but their geographical distribution puzzled him, who investigated the transmutation and conceived idea in 1838. He discussed his ideas but needed time for extensive research despite priority of geology. He wrote in 1858, when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay, which described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication.
His book of 1859 commonly established the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He examined human sexuality in Selection in Relation to Sex , and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals followed. A series of books published his research on plants, and he finally examined effect of earthworms on soil.
A state funeral recognized Darwin in recognition of preeminence and only four other non-royal personages of the United Kingdom of the 19th century; people buried his body in Westminster abbey, close to those of John Herschel and Isaac Newton.
Her fathered Francis Darwin, astronomer George Darwin, and politician, economist and eugenicist Leonard Darwin.
(Arabic: تشارلز داروين)
Chiefly Asa Gray of America advocated his theories.
Works of Jacques Martin Barzun include Darwin, Marx, Wagner (1941).
Charles Robert Darwin, an eminent English collector and geologist, proposed and provided scientific evidence of common ancestors for all life over time through the process that he called. The scientific community and the public in his lifetime accepted the facts that occur and then in the 1930s widely came to see the primary explanation of the process that now forms modernity. In modified form, the foundational scientific discovery of Darwin provides a unifying logical explanation for the diversity of life.
Darwin developed his interest in history and medicine at Edinburgh University and then theology at Cambridge. His five-year voyage on the Beagle established him as a geologist, whose observations and supported uniformitarian ideas of Charles Lyell, and publication of his journal made him as a popular author. Darwin collected wildlife and fossils on the voyage, but their geographical distribution puzzled him, who investigated the transmutation and conceived idea in 1838. He discussed his ideas but needed time for extensive research despite priority of geology. He wrote in 1858, when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay, which described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication.
His book of 1859 commonly established the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He examined human sexuality in Selection in Relation to Sex , and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals followed. A series of books published his research on plants, and he finally examined effect of earthworms on soil.
A state funeral recognized Darwin in recognition of preeminence and only four other non-royal personages of the United Kingdom of the 19th century; people buried his body in Westminster abbey, close to those of John Herschel and Isaac Newton.
Her fathered Francis Darwin, astronomer George Darwin, and politician, economist and eugenicist Leonard Darwin.
(Arabic: تشارلز داروين)
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 7, 2019
"On the Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin was published in 1859. Natural evolution was very controversial and created a backlash, even among most of Darwin's scientific colleagues because they were so wedded to "creation by design" (by which the hand of God had, over time, brought about the perfected forms of the plants that we now know) that had become the accepted belief of how everything had come to be.
So, in 1862 Darwin published "On the Various Contrivances...) a scrupulously detailed scientific account of his exploration of how a wide number of varieties of orchids are fertilized by a variety of surprisingly different mechanisms. As his learned colleagues read his very careful and irrefutable observations of the vast and surprising details of how differing orchids contrived to be fertilized, when they reached page 306 (with another 54 to go) they came upon a paragraph which read in part: "Can we, in truth, feel satisfied by saying that each Orchid was created, exactly as we now see it, on a certain "ideal type;" that the Omnipotent Creator, having fixed on one plan for the whole Order, did not please to depart from this plan; that He, therefore, made the same organ to perform diverse functions - often of trifling importance... Is it not a more simple and intelligible view that all Orchids owe what they have in common to descent from some monocotyledonous plant..." etc.
In this way he convinced the scientific community that the form in which we see all living things is not how they began or were carefully created by the Creator , but the result of adaptation to natural evolutionary forces.
Only a scientific nerd (and perhaps an orchid grower) such as myself would want to read this book. But, I found fascinating his way of laying out the proof and then dropping the bombshell - that what you believe cannot be right, to be worth reading (or at least skimming) 360 pages of scientific trivia.
So, in 1862 Darwin published "On the Various Contrivances...) a scrupulously detailed scientific account of his exploration of how a wide number of varieties of orchids are fertilized by a variety of surprisingly different mechanisms. As his learned colleagues read his very careful and irrefutable observations of the vast and surprising details of how differing orchids contrived to be fertilized, when they reached page 306 (with another 54 to go) they came upon a paragraph which read in part: "Can we, in truth, feel satisfied by saying that each Orchid was created, exactly as we now see it, on a certain "ideal type;" that the Omnipotent Creator, having fixed on one plan for the whole Order, did not please to depart from this plan; that He, therefore, made the same organ to perform diverse functions - often of trifling importance... Is it not a more simple and intelligible view that all Orchids owe what they have in common to descent from some monocotyledonous plant..." etc.
In this way he convinced the scientific community that the form in which we see all living things is not how they began or were carefully created by the Creator , but the result of adaptation to natural evolutionary forces.
Only a scientific nerd (and perhaps an orchid grower) such as myself would want to read this book. But, I found fascinating his way of laying out the proof and then dropping the bombshell - that what you believe cannot be right, to be worth reading (or at least skimming) 360 pages of scientific trivia.
September 3, 2021
Here's the book that convinced many naturalists of Darwin's theories of natural selection--lauched a few years prior in Origin of Species. Love the way he talks about catasetums here! Orchids, as he well knew, rule.
Want to read
January 14, 2024___________________________________
FROM BOOK: Fare l'amore come un'orchidea. Storia e mirabilia del fiore più intelligente del mondo (Alessandro Wagner)
FROM BOOK: Fare l'amore come un'orchidea. Storia e mirabilia del fiore più intelligente del mondo (Alessandro Wagner)
Currently reading
December 25, 2010Just began reading. Darwin's words are like the philosophy of orchids. Very beautiful. This is my first present of Christmas, along with a baby orchid!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews