Bryonia dioica diagram from 'The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants'

This diagram of Bryonia dioica is featured in ‘The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants’ by Charles Darwin and was illustrated by Darwin’s son, George. The essay was originally published in the Journal of the Linnean Society but was first printed in book form with these illustrations in 1875. Darwin wrote this work while living at Down House in Kent.

Down House, built in the early 18th century, was home to Darwin for 40 years until his death in 1882. After moving to the house in 1842, Darwin and his wife, Emma, remodelled the building and its extensive gardens many times. The garden was integral to family life. It provided a place of play and relaxation, a kitchen garden to grow food, and perhaps most famously a place for Darwin to experiment and test his scientific theories. It was here that Darwin developed his theory of evolution by natural selection and wrote his ground breaking work ‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859).