n 



CHAPTER XXVI 



PUBLICATION OF THE * OKIGIN ' AND THE ' INTRODUCTION 

 TO THE TASMANIAN FLORA ' 



Darwin was well content that his ideas, given to the world 



in November 1859, had akeady won the support of Lyell and 



. Hooker, the first geologist and the fii'st botanist of the age. 



The publication, nearly a month earher, of the Introductory 



Essay to the Flora of Tasmania, though of course unable to 



\ refer to the store of material and argument in the printed 



; page of the * Origin,' was scientifically the strongest possible 



' buttress of Darwin. It took the crucial case of the Australian 



I Flora which presented so many exceptions to the rule of 



i Distribution elsewhere. In a country of relatively uniform 



physical features, the botanist expects to find a large number 



of individuals of comparatively few kinds. Here the case 



was reversed. The number of genera and species was very 



great. More than that, the crowded forms of the S.W. were 



singularly different from those of the S.E. Though so near, 



they had not intermingled, while in Tasmania, joined to the 



S.E. region at no very remote geological date, appeared a 



larger proportion of extra-Australian plants, notably those 



of Antarctic and European types. 



Beginning with a reference to his large materials, and the 

 fact that in the five years of his work he had personally 

 examined 7000 out of the 8000 species discussed, he avowed 

 his revision of the views expressed in the New Zealand Flora, 

 set forth not as his own views, but as the current working 

 hypothesis, namely the immutability of species as create( 



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