I8S7-] LARGE GENERA VARYING. 10$ 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down, Aug. [1857]. 



Mv DEAR HOOKER, It is a horrid bore you cannot come 

 soon, and I reproach myself that I did not write sooner. How 

 busy you must be! with such a heap of botanists at Kew. 

 Only think, I have just had a letter from Henslow, saying he 

 will come" here between nth and i$th! Is not that grand? 

 Many thanks about Furnrohr. I must humbly supplicate 

 Kippist to search for it : he most kindly got Boreau for me. 



I am got extremely interested in tabulating, according to 

 mere size of genera, the species having any varieties marked 

 by Greek letters or otherwise : the result (as far as I have yet 

 gone) seems to me one of the most important arguments I 

 have yet met with, that varieties are only small species or 

 species only strongly marked varieties. The subject is in 

 many ways so very important for me ; I wish much you would 

 think of any well-worked Floras with from 1000-2000 species, 

 with the varieties marked. It is good to have hair-splitters 

 and lumpers.* I have done, or am doing : 



Babington . , . . "J 



Henslow ...... \ British Flora. 



London Catalogue. H. C. Watson . J 

 Boreau .... France. 



Miquel .... Holland. 



Asa Gray U. States. 



Hooker ,' . . * Zealand 



Fragment of Indian Flora. 

 Wollaston . . . Madeira insects. 



Has not Koch published a good German Flora? Does he 

 mark varieties ? Could you send it me ? Is there not some 

 grand Russian Flora, which perhaps has varieties marked ? 

 The Floras ought to be well known. 



* Those who make many species are the " splitters," and those who 

 make few are the " lumpers." 



