WCP2943

Letter (WCP2943.2833)

[1]1

THE FERNS,

WHITCOMBE,

GLOUCESTER

11. vi. [19]092

Dear Dr Wallace,

I am afraid I cannot help you. My two great Flor African Flora are still unfinished and it [1 word illeg. struck through] will probably be years before they are3. Even if I live to see it accomplished — and even then they would hardly supply the basis of a trustworthy estimate owing to the imperfect supply of material for the earlier volumes.

Sir Joseph Hooker4 estimates the known flowering [2 words illeg.] Indian peninsula at 17000 spp [species]. But this includes the temperate Himalayan Flora[.]

In the ‘Index flora sinensis’5 which I had prepared at Kew, I estimate the known flora of China in the Preface at 12000 spp [species]. But this is mostly temperate.

[2] Geographical Botany badly wants data. The difficulty is that the working up of material does not keep pace with its acquisition. I used to sigh over the vast stores in the Kew Herbarium which are dead as far as science is concerned. If I were a younger man, I would try to get some International cooperation in cataloguing the pl flowering plants of the world. It is really a scandal that progress is so slow.

I am sending your letter on to Kew where perhaps my successor [abbreviation illeg.] <David> Prain6 might be able to give you and some rough estimates. It occurs to me that some approximation [3]7 to the figures you want might be obtained from the Index Kewensis8, which roughly gives the geographical distribution9. But the labour would be enormous.

I wonder if you have seen the Cambridge Memorial volume10 on Darwin11. If so I should be curious to know your opinion of my essay on his Geographical Distribution work. I suppose, except yourself and Sir Joseph Hooker, I am about the only person who could have told the story. I felt great interest in doing it.

Casimir de Candolle12, Geneva wrote to me that he had tabulated the data given in Bentham13 and Hooker’s Genera Plantarum14. I tried to get the results out of him without success. [4] But he wrote [to] me that they led to the conclusion: — ‘La vegetation est un phénomène surtout intertropical, dont nous ne voyons plus que restes affaiblés dans nos regions temperées’[.]15

I am delighted to see you are full of interest[?] and work[.]

Yours very sincerely | W. T. Thiselton-Dyer16 [signature]

1
Page numbered 44 in pencil in top RH corner and "Answ[ere]d.." is written in ink across the top LH corner.
2
Year deduced from birth and death dates of author.
3
The Flora Capensis, recording the vegetation of S. Africa and the Flora of Tropical Africa had been undertaken in Kew in 1859 and 1868 respectively. Only 3 volumes of each series had been published before coming to a halt in 1891, far from completion. Thiselton-Dyer assumed editorial responsibility for the two floras; four volumes of Flora Capensis were finished during his retirement (after 1905) and Flora of Tropical Africa was finished by his successors David Prain and Arthur Hill.
4
Hooker, Joseph Dalton (1817-1911). British botanist and explorer, founder of geographical botany. He succeeded his father William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865) as Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew on his death and held the post for 20 years.
5
Thiselton-Dyer W.T. (1883-1905) Index florae sinensis Vols 1-3, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
6
Prain, David (1857-1944). Scottish physician and botanist, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 1905-1922.
7
Page numbered 45 in pencil in top RH corner.
8
The Index Kewensis maintained by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a publication that aims to register all botanical names for Angiosperms at the rank of species and genera. It later came to include names of taxonomic families and ranks below that of species. The starting point was taken from 1753 onward; the year of publication for the Systema Naturae of Linnaeus.
9
"which roughly gives the geographical distribution" appears to be an afterthought, as it is inserted between lines of writing.
10
Seward, A. C. ed. (1909) Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The origin of species. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
11
Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882). English naturalist and writer. Originator of the theory of evolution by natural selection and author (1859) of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
12
de Candolle, Anne Casimir Pyrame (1836-1918). Swiss systematic botanist. He continued work on Monographiae phanerogamarum, a project begun by his father Alphonse and was co-editor of the Archives des sciences physiques et naturelles (Geneva).
13
Bentham, George (1800-1884) English systematic botanist.
14
Bentham G. & Hooker, J. D. (1862-1883). Genera Plantarum: ad exemplaria imprimis in Herberiis Kewensibus servata definita, Kew, A. Black Hookerian Herbarium.
15
"Vegetation is above all an intertropical phenomenon, of which we don’t see more than the weakened remainder in our temperate regions". The tropics possess almost two-thirds of the large groups in the world's vegetation.
16
British Museum stamp underneath.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2943.2833)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2015-05-14] Transcription checked by Benny, Ruth [2015-05-14] Transcription checked by Sherwood, Danni [2020-08-10]

Please cite as “WCP2943,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 2 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2943