Dear Darwin

I have roughly done your N.Z. list & am glad to have had my attention drawn to the subject I have roughly marked your list & have made a separate calculation with some slight modifications, due, partly to swaying to & fro between what to call monœcious & what diœcious, & partly to a few additions.¹ The Upshot is that I find on adding up my data, 756 species. (some of this 26 over your list is due to unnumbered species & perhaps some to over calculation on my part, I suppose 6 or 8 errors of the latter kind will not influence result.

I make now 108 trees in all; whereas in N. Zeald Flora Introd Essay XXVIII I say there are 113—a near enough hit considering how vague the terms are, which it would be easy to cook into exact accordance or further discordance.² I say N.Z. Fl. l.c. 156 shrubs & plants with woody stems I now make 150—which is near enough also (far nearer both than I anticipated; for I did not at all remember even approximately what I had done before, & made my calculations before looking to the Introd Essay.³

I also say l.c. that “considerably more than 200 have unisexual, or incomplete flowers as far as reproduct: organs go. I now make the number 234.

I was a great deal too wise in my generation to say in N.Z. Flora how many are monoeecious, dioecious & polygamous for I find that I cannot do this with any approach to accuracy— Perhaps very few are really everlastingly & unalterably dioecious: & I do not think that my diœcious figure is too small.— On the other hand no doubt diag 1. sundry of my hermaphrodite plants may be virtually though abnormally

monœcous 2. Many of my monœcious may bear many perfect flowers, as Clematis 3. Many of my hermaphrodite have normally unisexual flowers mixed with the

♂♀ 4 Lastly various dioecious trees often bear a few flowers of the other sex.

On the opposite side you have the best approximation I can give.

flowers

Hermaph. Monœcious Dioecious Herbs 379 102* 19 Shrubs 88 30 31 Trees 56 40. 12. * including 55 Compos. The results will be satisfactory to your theory.⁴ ramme

I will do the V.D.L. Flora for you far better in a couple of months.⁵

I dare say that you will not be so surprized as I was at Lyell’s asking my wife if I was the author of the Review (very laudatory of self) in Ed. Review of ADC. + Fl. Ind. + N.Z. Essay—to me the idea is monstrous & revolting—he must think of me all the same as of Owen. by way of mending the matter, when my wife told him I was not, he added that he did not think it very well done!⁶ This latter bit tickled me amazingly, I can afford that, but not the first imputation. Poor Lady L.⁷ who was present, seemed much annoyed, my wife laughed at it all, happily— had it been my mother—the Lord have mercy on poor Lyell’s bones— Pray do not let this go further than your own house. I would not that poor Lyell heard of it again.

Ever Y^rs | Jos D Hooker

Do tell us how M^rs Darwin is when you next have occasion to write—

Clematis, dioecious but some ♂ flowers have a few ripening pistilla

Viola. hermaphrodite but the winter flowers which have scarcely any stamina appear to be the most productive (? is this so in the N.Z. sp.) Compositæ. I class with monœcious. Grasses various called ♂♀ have also ♂ flowers.