474 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION [CHAP. VI 



Letter 359 parasitic in early youth on cryptogams ! 1 Here is a fool's 

 notion. I have some planted on Sphagnum. Do any tropical 

 lichens or mosses, or European, withstand heat, or grow on 

 any trees in hothouse at Kew? If so, for love of Heaven, 

 favour my madness, and have some scraped off and sent me. 

 I am like a gambler, and love a wild experiment. It 

 gives me great pleasure to fancy that I see radicles of orchid 

 seed penetrating the Sphagnum. I know I shall not, and 

 therefore shall not be disappointed. 



Letter 360 To J. D. Hooker. 



Down [Sept. 26th, 1863]. 



. . . About New Zealand, at last I am coming round, and 

 admit it must have been connected with some terra firma, but 

 I will die rather than admit Australia. How I wish mount- 

 ains of New Caledonia were well worked ! . . . 



Letter 361 To J. D. Hooker. 



In the earlier part of this letter Mr. Darwin refers to a review 

 on Planchon in the Nat. History Review, April 1865. There can be no 

 doubt, therefore, that "Thomson's article" must be the review of Jordan's 

 Diagnoses tfespeces nouvelles ou meconnues, etc., in the same number, 

 p. 226. It deals with "lumpers" and "'splitters," and a possible trinomial 



nomenclature. 



April i;th [1865]. 



I have been very much struck by Thomson's article ; it 

 seems to me quite remarkable for its judgment, force, and 

 clearness. It has interested me greatly. I have sometimes 

 loosely speculated on what nomenclature would come to, and 

 concluded that it would be trinomial. What a name a plant 

 will formally bear with the author's name after genus (as some 

 recommend), and after species and subspecies ! It really 

 seems one of the greatest questions which can be discussed 

 for systematic Natural History. How impartially Thomson 

 adjusts the claims of "hair-splitters' and "lumpers"! I 



1 In an article on British Epiphytal Orchids (Gard. Chron., 1884, 

 p. 144) Malaxis pahidosa is described by F. W. Burbidge as being 

 a true epiphyte on the stems of Sphagnum. Stahl states that the 

 difficulty of cultivating orchids largely depends on their dependence on 

 a mycorhizal fungus, though he does not apply his view to germination. 

 See Pringsheim's Jahrbucher, XXXIV., p. 581. We are indebted to 

 Sir Joseph Hooker for the reference to Burbidge's paper. 



