Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2011.0052
Title: John Tweedie and Charles Darwin in Buenos Aires
Authors: Ollerton, J.
Chancellor, G.
Van Wyhe, J. 
Keywords: Buenos Aires
Charles Darwin
Fossil wood
HMS Beagle
John Stevens Henslow
John Tweedie
Issue Date: 20-Jun-2012
Citation: Ollerton, J., Chancellor, G., Van Wyhe, J. (2012-06-20). John Tweedie and Charles Darwin in Buenos Aires. Notes and Records of the Royal Society 66 (2) : 115-124. ScholarBank@NUS Repository. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2011.0052
Abstract: The journey of exploration undertaken by Charles Darwin FRS during the voyage of HMS Beagle has a central place within the historical development of evolutionary theory and has been intensively studied. Despite this, new facts continue to emerge about some of the details of Darwin's activities. Drawing on recently published Darwin material and unpublished letters in the archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, we document a hitherto unexamined link between Darwin and John Tweedie (1775-1862), a relatively obscure Scottish gardener turned South American plant collector. All of the available evidence points to a meeting between the two men in Buenos Aires in 1832. Tweedie provided Darwin with information about the geography of the Rio Paraná, including the locality of fossilized wood eroding from the river bank. It also seems likely that Tweedie supplied Darwin with seeds that he later shipped back to John Stevens Henslow in Cambridge. Although this brief meeting was at the time relatively unimportant to either man, echoes of that encounter have resonated with Tweedie's descendants to the present day and have formed the basis for a family story about a written correspondence between Darwin and Tweedie. Local information supplied to Darwin by residents such as Tweedie was clearly important and deserves further attention. This journal is © 2012 The Royal Society.
Source Title: Notes and Records of the Royal Society
URI: http://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/handle/10635/100994
ISSN: 00359149
DOI: 10.1098/rsnr.2011.0052
Appears in Collections:Staff Publications

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