From J. D. Hooker [before 7 March 1855]
Summary
CD’s tabulation of colonists curious but explicable.
Working on Tasmanian flora; contemplating general essay on Australian distribution: Tasmania and Australia same alpine species; Swan River flora very peculiar and quite distinct from New South Wales.
Trying to establish new journal at Linnean.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [before 7 Mar 1855] |
| Classmark: | DAR 104: 216–17 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1638 |
From J. D. Hooker [before 17 March 1855]
Summary
JDH criticises C. J. F. Bunbury’s paper on Madeira [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 1 (1857): 1–35].
Absence of Ophrys on Madeira suggests to JDH a sequence in creation of groups.
Why are flightless insects common in desert?
Australian endemism.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [before 17 Mar 1855] |
| Classmark: | DAR 104: 210–13 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1644 |
From J. D. Hooker [6–9 June 1855]
Summary
Finds Forbes’s continental theories, migration, and double creation are all unsatisfactory explanations of geographical distribution of plants.
Is currently working on problems of sea transport of plant species.
European plants on Australian Alps only explicable by double creations.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [6–9 June 1855] |
| Classmark: | DAR 100: 90–3 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1694 |
From J. D. Hooker [8 July 1855]
Summary
Australian Leguminosae problem: of 900 species not ten are common to southwest and southeast. No migration; hence either creation or variation.
Himalayan thistles: graded intermediates between large and small English species, "shakes species to their foundations". Similarity of CD’s and his views on species.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [8 July 1855] |
| Classmark: | DAR 104: 192–3 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1714 |
