My dear Darwin

I am groaning over the parturition of my Introd. Essay, which advances much slower than yours.² Will you kindly cast your eye over the enclosed & give me your opinion of it candidly as a programme.

I had no idea my Australian work would have interested you so much—I have added about 26 more genera to the list & a few to the species list, of plants; both cases that are very sparingly developed in Europe & only in the hot Southern regions.³

I have no copies of the lists but do not hurry about copying or returning them

I send a list of Europæan plants in S. Chili &c.—

Also a no answer at all of de Vrieses to your question about Europæan plants seeding in Java.⁴

I will see to Acacias—there is a curious Physolog. fact about them that each anther contains only 3–4 grains of pollen

I should think that the percentage of N. temperate American plants in Fuegia &c is greater than the percentage of Europæan plants in Australia— I think you must connect the comparative paucity of Northern Plants in Fuegia &c with the impoverishment of the whole Fuegian &c Flora. An Equable cool humid climate according to my view favors the exuberance of a few variable individuals & thus tends to paucity of species, except you call all the varieties species.

Thanks for your hint I shall be very cautious how I mention any connection between the varied Flora & poor soil of S West Australia—I thought I would work in some notions derived from the fact that the individuals in such cases attain great age, & there is less vegetable strife. It is not by the way only that the species are so numerous, but that these & the genera are so confoundedly well marked. You have in short an incredible number of very local, well-marked genera & Species crowded into that corner of Australia. ⁵

I have not written one word of Lyell—God help me— I shall send you a draft in a day or two—but for shame I would ask you to do it altogether.⁶

Yours | Jo^s D Hooker

Do not fear that you have forestalled me in any thing! I have no notion of such a thing⁷