438 LETTERS TO DARWIX, 1843-1859 
theirs to the BraziHan. I do not suppose that there is 
another plant of so great a size having one thii'd as great 
a range in Latitude. 
The Govt, have not as yet granted anythmg towards 
my pubhcation, 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 Uttle Barberry of your Chiloean 
collection [Berheris Darwinii'] engravea for the Tcones 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 pecuharity. 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 ^ has wholly overlooked, the 
Flora of the Sandwich group is quite singular, in the pre- 
ponderance chiefly of Loheliaceae and Scaevoleae (if I 
remember) ; they are not however hkely 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 pecuharities 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.^^I.S. Sulphur, 
and made the first collection of Hongkong plants which reached England. He 
was author of The Regions of Vegetation, 1843, and edited the botany of H.M.S. 
Sulphur's voyage, andcontributc d several i)apers on shells to various publications. 
