Emily Lawless and Charles Darwin: an Irish mystery

Abstract

While no original autograph letters between the Hon. Miss Emily Lawless and Charles Darwin are known, Darwin was impressed by her observations and encouraged her to submit to Nature a manuscript account of fertilization of plants. This manuscript cannot be traced, nor can her note hypothesizing about the role of the transparent burnet moth in pollination in The Burren, County Clare, which apparently prompted Darwin to make contact with her.