1 857.] TREES AND SHRUBS. 89 



the results I have worked out in several ways. It is of great 

 importance to my notions. By the way you have paid me a 

 great compliment : * to be simply mentioned even in such a 

 paper I consider a very great honour. One of your con- 

 clusions makes me groan, viz. that the line of connection of 

 the strictly Alpine plants is through Greenland. I should 

 extremely like to see your reasons published in detail, for it 

 "riles" me (this is a proper expression, is it not?) dreadfully. 

 Lyell told me, that Agassiz having a theory about when 

 Saurians-were first created, on hearing some careful observa- 

 tions opposed to this, said he did not believe it, " for Nature 

 never lied." I am just in this predicament, and repeat to 

 you that, " Nature never lies," ergo, theorisers are always 

 right. . . . 



Overworked as you are, I dare say you will say that I am 

 an odious plague ; but here is another suggestion ! I was led 

 by one of my wild speculations to conclude (though it has 

 nothing to do with geographical distribution, yet it has with 

 your statistics) that trees would have a strong tendency to have 

 flowers with dioecious, moncecious or polygamous structure. 

 Seeing that this seemed so in Persoon, I took one little 

 British Flora, and discriminating trees from bushes according 

 to Loudon, I have found that the result was in species, genera 

 and families, as I anticipated. So I sent my notions to Hooker 

 to ask him to tabulate the New Zealand Flora for this end, 

 and he thought my result sufficiently curious, to do so ; and 

 the accordance with Britain is very striking, and the more so, 

 as he made three classes of trees, bushes, and herbaceous 

 plants. (He says further he shall work the Tasmanian Flora 

 on the same principle.) The bushes hold an intermediate 

 position between the other two classes. It seems to me a 



* " From some investigations of of] large genera range over a larger 

 his own, this sagacious naturalist area than the species of small 

 inclines to think that [the species genera do." Asa Gray, loc. cit. 



