HIGH AND LOW DEVELOPMENT 481 
fore turn to higher considerations than mere organic com- 
plexity and perfection of whorls and make these secondary — 
when the physiology of the reproductive organs at once 
suggests itself and Gymnosperms jump up from the bottom 
of the scale to the top ! for they swperadd to the perfect 
Phanerogamic reproductive apparatus an exaggeration of 
that of the highest Cryptogam, and this without showing 
the sHghtest trace of low development in trunk, embryo, 
pollen or ovule, and without displaying any of the pecuh- 
arities which keep Cryptogams below Phaenogams, except 
always the want of a stigma, which does not imply how- 
ever any modification of pollen or pollen- tube ! ! ! 
I am atrociously busy, as, if you knew anything about 
me, you would know by this long letter. 
The Floras of New Zealand and India are based on the 
acceptance of the reigning behef in the fixity of species. The 
change takes place between 1855 and 1859, when the Australian 
Flora was pubhshed, more especially, as has been pointed out, 
after the full argument of the Origin was first put together 
in 1858 and resolved the chief difficulties which his own work 
had left unanswered. 
Thus he avowedly adopts a new principle in his Introductio n 
to the Tasmanian Flora, which he explains in the following 
letters to Harvey, whom he is consulting as to affinities between 
the Cape Flora and the Australian, to Asa Gray and Bent ham. 
Kew : Sunday, January 1, 1859. 
Dear Harvey, — I am labouring right hard at the 
Introd. Essay on AustraHan Flora,^ whose only hope of 
utility is the quantity of curious stuff it may contain ; for 
as to elaborating from it a theory of the origin, etc., of 
Austrahan Botany, it is hopeless, I fear. What I shall 
try to do is, to harmonise the facts with the newest doctrines, 
not because they are the truest, but because they do give 
you room to reason and reflect at present, and hopes for the 
future, whereas the old stick-in-the-mud doctrines of absolute 
creations, multiple creations, and dispersion by actual causes 
under existing circumstances, are all used up, they are so 
many stops to further enquiry ; if they are admitted as 
^ First volume published 1859. 
