From J. D. Hooker [c. April 1851]1
Kew
Thursday
My dear Darwin
Many thanks for your letter just received, & its enclosure from Pickering— the list is instructive— I will copy & return it what I want is howevever, a catalogue of such Islands as Elizabeth, & Pitcairn’s, which are very small & contain peculiar plants. 2 The total absence of peculiarity in the Coral Islets is suggestive, if taken in conjunction with the fact of their sinking—3 a peculiar plant on one such is perhaps the sole representative of what may have been a large genus Complete Flora’s of several Islands in the various stages of depression, from the rocky original Mt. with its fringing reef, to the isolated coral speck in the ocean would give some good data.
The Fitchia of Elizabeth-Island4 reminds me of the lone man in Martin’s5 ⟨remaining page(s) missing⟩
I quite understand & sympathize with your Barnacles, they must be just like Ferns.!6
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Feaver, William. 1975. The art of John Martin. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hooker, Joseph Dalton. 1853–5. Flora Novæ-Zelandiæ. 2 vols. Pt 2 of The botany of the Antarctic voyage of HM discovery ships Erebus and Terror, in the years 1839–1843, under the command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross. London: Lovell Reeve.
Living Cirripedia (1854): A monograph of the sub-class Cirripedia, with figures of all the species. The Balanidæ (or sessile cirripedes); the Verrucidæ, etc. By Charles Darwin. London: Ray Society. 1854.
Summary
Wants catalogue of small islands that contain peculiar plants. Thinks complete floras of islands in various stages of depression [subsidence] would provide good data.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1382
- From
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Kew
- Source of text
- DAR 100: 164
- Physical description
- inc †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1382,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1382.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 5