438 LETTEKS TO DARWIN, 1843-1859 



theirs to the Brazilian. I do not suppose that there is 

 another plant of so great a size having one third as great 

 a range in Latitude. 



The Govt. have not as yet granted anything towards 

 my publication, but I hope they will ere long. Not being 

 a good arranger of extended views . I rather fear the Geo- 

 graphical distribution, which I shall not attempt till I have 

 worked out all the species, especially as I hope that more 

 facts of as great importance as the range of the Winter's 

 Bark may turn up. With many happy returns of this 

 season, 



Believe me, my dear Sir, 



Your most truly and obliged, 



Jos. D. HOOKER. 



We have just had a pretty little Barberry of your Chiloean 

 collection \Berberis Darwinii] engraved for the Icones Plan- 

 tarum, as it will not come into the Antarctic Flora, save in 

 a note. 



Early April 1845. 



I do not doubt the Flora of the Sandwich Islands being 

 very peculiar, but the difficulty is to settle what amount 

 of new species or of new genera produces peculiarity. One 

 species will sometimes render a whole vegetation peculiar 

 in the eyes of some. In some instances, which I mentioned 

 to you before, and which Hinds l has wholly overlooked, the 

 Flora of the Sandwich group is quite singular, in the pre- 

 ponderance chiefly of Lobeliaceae and Scaevoleae (if I 

 remember) ; they are not however likely to strike a casual 

 observer or to give a feature to the vegetation. Wilkes is 

 probably indebted to his Botanist for the observation, which 

 is just : no missionary book, nor does Cook (I think) nor any 

 other unpractised observer, particularize the group as having 

 any peculiarities of vegetation, but the contrary. I have 

 not read Wilkes yet. Our ideas of peculiarity are most 

 loose, we have no standard ; in the first instance we must 

 know the absolute numerical amount of peculiar species ; 

 this must ever be the primary point, the leading fact ; all 



1 Richard Brinsley Hinds (d. before 1861) was surgeon to H.M.S. Sulphur, 

 and made the first collection of Hongkong plants which reached England. He 

 Wiis author of The Regions of Vegetation, 1843, and edited the botany of H.M.S. 

 Sulphur's voyage, andcontributed several papers on shells to various publications. 



