446 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION [Chap. VI 



Letter 340 op:ns, the stigma might be ready first, though according to 

 C. C. Sprengel this is a rarer case. I wrote to Miiller for 

 chance of his being able and willing to observe this. 



Your fact of greater number of European plants (N.B. — 

 But do you mean greater percentage ?) in Australia than in 

 S. America is astounding and very unpleasant to me ; for 

 from N.W. America (where nearly the same flora exists as in 

 Canada ?) to T. del Fuego, there is far more continuous high 

 land than from Europe to Tasmania. There must have, I 

 should think, existed some curious barrier on American High- 

 Road : dryness of Peru, excessive damp of Panama, or some 

 other confounded cause, which either prevented immigration 

 or has since destroyed them. You say I may ask questions, 

 and so I have on enclosed paper ; but it will of course be a 

 very different thing whether you will think them worth labour 

 of answering. 



May I keep the lists now returned ? otherwise I will have 

 them copied. 



You said that you would give me a few cases of Australian 

 forms and identical species going north by Malay Archipelago 

 mountains to Philippines and Japan ; but if these are given 

 in your hitroductmi l this will suffice for me. 



Your lists seem to me wonderfully interesting. 



According to my theoretical notions, I am not satisfied 

 with what you say about local plants in S.W. corner of 

 Australia,- and the seeds not readily germinating : do be 

 cautious on this ; consider lapse of time. It does not suit my 

 stomach at all. It is like Wollaston's confined land-snails in 

 Porto Santo, and confined to same spots since a Tertiary 

 period, being due to their slow crawling powers ; and yet we 

 know that other shell-snails have stocked a whole country 

 within a very few years with the same breeding powers, and 

 same crawling powers, when the conditions have been favour- 



1 See Hooker's Introductory Essay, p. 1. 



1 Sir Joseph replied in an undated letter : " Thanks for your hint. I 

 shall be very cautious how I mention any connection between the varied 

 flora and poor soil of S.W. Australia. ... It is not by the way only 

 that the species are so numerous, but that these and the genera are so 

 confoundedly well marked. You have, in short, an incredible number of 

 very local, well marked genera and species crowded into that corner of 

 Australia." See Introductory Essay to tlie Flora of Tasmania, 1859, p. li. 



