(376/4. "What should we say, for instance, if a plant so totally unlike anything British as the Monizia edulis...were found on one rocky islet of the Scillies, or another umbelliferous plant, Melanoselinum...on one mountain in Wales; or if the Isle of Wight and Scilly Islands had varieties, species, and genera too, differing from anything in Britain, and found nowhere else in the world!")
I must allude to one of your last notes with very curious case of proportion of annuals in New Zealand. (376/5. On this subject see Hildebrand's interesting paper "Die Lebensdauer der Pflanzen" (Engler's "Botanische Jahrbucher," Volume II., 1882, page 51). He shows that annuals are rare in very dry desert-lands, in northern and alpine regions. The following table gives the percentages of annuals, etc., in various situations in Freiburg (Baden):--
Annuals. Biennials. Perennials. Trees and Shrubs. Sandy, dry, and stony places: 21 11 65 3
Dry fields: 6 4 90
Damp fields: 12 2 77 9
Woods and copses: 3 2 65 31
Water: 3 97
Cultivated land: 89 11)
Are annuals adapted for short seasons, as in arctic regions, or tropical countries with dry season, or for periodically disturbed and cultivated ground? You speak of evergreen vegetation as leading to few or confined conditions; but is not evergreen vegetation connected with humid and equable climate? Does not a very humid climate almost imply (Tyndall) an equable one?
I have never printed a word that I can remember about orchids and papilionaceous plants being few in islands on account of rarity of insects; and I remember you screamed at me when I suggested this a propos of Papilionaceae in New Zealand, and of the statement about clover not seeding there till the hive-bee was introduced, as I stated in my paper in "Gard. Chronicle." (376/6. "In an old number of the "Gardeners' Chronicle" an extract is given from a New Zealand newspaper in which much surprise is expressed that the introduced clover never seeded freely until the hive-bee was introduced." "On the Agency of Bees in the Fertilisation of Papilionaceous Flowers..." ("Gard. Chron." 1858, page 828). See Letter 362, note.) I have been these last few days vexed and annoyed to a foolish degree by hearing that my MS. on Domestic Animals, etc., will make two volumes, both bigger than the "Origin." The volumes will have to be full-sized octavo, so I have written to Murray to suggest details to be printed in small type. But I feel that the size is quite ludicrous in relation to the subject. I am ready to swear at myself and at every fool who writes a book.
LETTER 377. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, January 15th [1867].
Thanks for your jolly letter. I have read your second article (377/1. The lecture on Insular Floras was published in instalments in the "Gardeners' Chronicle," January 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th, 1867.), and like it even more than the first, and more than this I cannot say. By mere chance I stumbled yesterday on a passage in Humboldt that a violet grows on the Peak of Teneriffe in common with the Pyrenees. If Humboldt is right that the Canary Is. which lie nearest to the continent have a much stronger African character than the others, ought you not just to allude to this? I do not know whether you admit, and if so allude to, the view which seems to me probable, that most of the genera confined to the Atlantic islands (I do not say the species) originally existed in, and were derived from, Europe, [and have] become extinct on this continent. I should thus account for the community of peculiar genera in the several Atlantic islands. About the Salvages is capital. (377/2. The Salvages are rocky islets about midway between Madeira and the Canaries; and they have an Atlantic flora, instead of, as might have been expected, one composed of African immigrants. ("Insular Floras," page 5 of separate copy.)) I am glad you speak of LINKING, though this sounds a little too close, instead of being continuous.