Among Charles Darwin’s lesser‑known publications are about 40 short pieces that appeared in Nature between 1869, the year in which the journal launched, and 1883, a year after the naturalist died. Most were Letters to the Editor (now Correspondence), and the topics they embraced included inheritance, flowers and fertilization and the origin of different instincts.

In one piece, he emphasizes that the evolution of species is influenced by environmental action on organisms and by inherited effects on the use and disuse of parts, as well as by natural selection (Nature 23, 32; 1880). In another, he gives some interesting instances of inheritance (Nature 24, 257; 1881). He also suggested that animals could inherit particular fears that could have been acquired through habit and from experience of their usefulness (Nature 7, 281; 1873) — an idea now backed by experimental evidence (B. G. Dias and K. J. Ressler Nature Neurosci. 17, 89–96; 2014).

Darwin proposed a mechanism of ‘pangenesis’ to account for hereditary phenomena. This assumed that cells continually emit minute particles or molecules (‘gemmules’) that diffuse from cell to cell, circulate through the body and are transmitted from parent to offspring. He defended his idea against widespread criticism from his contemporaries (Nature 3, 502–503; 1871). It could be argued that his gemmules were in fact circulating cell-free DNA, mobile RNAs and extracellular vesicles (see Y. Liu and Q. Chen Nature Rev. Mol. Cell. Biol. 19, 749–750; 2018).