* HIGHNESS ' OF AUSTKALIAN VEGETATION 463 
Kcw : December 26 [?], 1858. 
I wish we could have a httle work together. When 
shall we ever get to a reasonable agreement ? I am horrified 
to find that you think AustraUan forms lower than Old 
World ones ; because under everij method of determining 
high and low in Botany the Australiaii vegetation is the highest 
in the worlds 
1. The proportion of Phanerog. to Cryptog. is infinitely 
greater in Australia than elsewhere (this as being a mere 
condition of climate I do not give much for). 
2. Monocot. to Dicot. are in same proportion as else- 
where. 
3. Petaloid (higher Monocot.) are in greater ratio to 
Glumaceous in Australia than in Europe. 
4. The four Orders of Dicots, considered by different 
systematists as highest, are Compositae, Myrtaceae, Legu- 
minosae and the Kanunculaceous, including Dilleniaceae 
&c. Now, I believe (I have not tabulated yet) that all 
these are in greater proportion and more varied in Australia 
than in any other country. 
5. Then, granting with the heretical J. H. ! that Conifers 
are highest Phaenogs., and they are as numerous and most 
varied. 
6. There are very few Monochlamideous or Achlamideous 
Dicots in Australia. 
Now I have been using your hne of argument to my own 
purposes in this fashion : ' Granting with Darwin, that the 
principle of selection tends to extermination of low forms 
and multipHcation of high, it is easy to account for the 
general high development and pecuharity of Austrahan 
forms of plants, these being the remnants of an extensive 
Flora of great antiquity and which covered a very extensive 
and now developed Southern continent, &c., &c., &c.' How 
often do I say all our arguments are two-edged swords. 
Again, some Austrahan plants are rapidly running wild 
in India, as Casuarina, and I beheve several Acacias in the 
Nilgherries and some other Leguminosae. 
We cannot argue anything by contrasting the multiphca- 
^ Replying on the 30th, Darwin explains his meaning to have been the 
competitive superiority of the Old World plants when they met the Australian 
(M.L. i. 114). See also the letter to A. Gray of January 2, 1858, p. 480. 
