Botany was a popular subject for women in the nineteenth century. The materials were readily accessible for home study, and it was thought to be a good way of encouraging women to go outside and get some exercise and fresh air. It was, furthermore, an important subject; medical students studied botany as an essential part of their syllabus (materia medica, the raw material of medicines), and the increasing importance of empire, together with new experimental approaches such as Darwin's, rendered it cutting-edge. Of more than six hundred letters exchanged by Darwin and female correspondents, the largest number, after letters about family matters, are about botany. These range all the way from observations carried out on his behalf by nieces, to exchanges with other specialist botanists. This chapter only has room for a fraction of the letters available, and concentrates on four correspondents: Dorothy Nevill, Lydia Becker, Mary Treat, and Sophie Bledsoe Herrick.

Lady Dorothy Nevill had a notable garden at Dangstein near Midhurst, Sussex. She specialised in the cultivation of orchids, pitcher-plants, and other tropical plants. Her head gardener was James Vair, and since in her letters and autobiography she always minimises her own knowledge and accomplishments, it is difficult to assess how expert she was herself. Joseph Hooker wrote, ‘She was not the frivolous character she paints. She was thoroughly interested in the rare plants of her noble garden’ (Nevill 1919, p. 66). She was a tireless correspondent, supplied Darwin with many plants, and read his books. Darwin first wrote to her in 1861.