HIGH AND LOW DEVELOPMENT 481 



fore turn to higher considerations than mere organic com- 

 plexity and perfection of whorls and make these secondary 

 when the physiology of the reproductive organs at once 

 suggests itself and Gymnosperms jump up from the bottom 

 of the scale to the top ! for they superadd to the perfect 

 Phanerogamic reproductive apparatus an exaggeration of 

 that of the highest Cryptogam, and this without showing 

 the slightest trace of low development in trunk, embryo, 

 pollen or ovule, and without displaying any of the peculi- 

 arities which keep Cryptogams below Phaenogams, except 

 always the want of a stigma, which does not imply how- 

 ever any modification of pollen or pollen-tube ! ! ! 



I am atrociously busy, as, if you knew anything about 

 me, you would know by this long letter. 



The Floras of New Zealand and India are based on the 

 acceptance of the reigning belief in the fixity of species. The 

 change takes place between 1855 and 1859, when the Australian 

 Flora was published, more especially, as has been pointed out, 

 after the full argument of the Origin was first put together 

 in 1858 and resolved the chief difficulties which his own work 

 had left unanswered. 



Thus he avowedly adopts a new principle in his Introductio n 

 to the Tasmanian Flora, which he explains in the following 

 letters to Harvey, whom he is consulting as to affinities between 

 the Cape Flora and the Australian, to Asa Gray and Bentham. 



Kew : Sunday, January 1, 1859. 



DEAR HARVEY, I am labouring right hard at the 

 Introd. Essay on Australian Flora, 1 whose only hope of 

 utility is the quantity of curious stuff it may contain ; for 

 as to elaborating from it a theory of the origin, etc., of 

 Australian Botany, it is hopeless, I fear. What I shall 

 try to do is, to harmonise the facts with the newest doctrines, 

 not because they are the truest, but because they do give 

 you room to reason and reflect at present, and hopes for the 

 future, whereas the old stick-in-the-mud doctrines of absolute 

 creations, multiple creations, and dispersion by actual causes 

 under existing circumstances, are all used up, they are so 

 many stops to further enquiry ; if they are admitted as 



1 First volume published 1859. 



