WCP3546

[1]

Old Orchard,

Broadstone,

Wimborne

June 6th 1910

Dear Mr Deane

I want to trouble you again. I have just received a copy of the fine "Flora of Queensland" (Bailey's) from the Q[ueensland] Government through the good offices of an old friend Skertchley, a Geologist and charming writer ^{who has settled at Brisbane}. That gives me ^{no! enables me to get!} the number of species (up to 1900) — which amounts to 4454 phaneroganes, an increase of more than one-sixth over the number given at end of Müller's "Second Census" (1889.

[2] I should much like to have the figures for the Phaneroganes for each of the Australian States up to date. I presume some of your Sydney botanists keep a record. Even Bailey's fine "Flora" gives no figures of totals, nor even enumerates the number of genera & species in each family Order, — so I have had to get at it by counting up the numbers of species (in Roman type) in the 224 columns of the General Index!

I have also Dixon's little "PLANTS of N[Ew] S[Outh] WALES" (1906), but [3] there too, are no figures whatever! and to count up all the species in rather obscure type, & irregularly placed in its 296 pages, is too great a labour & too great a risk of eye-inflammation, which I have three times in my life suffered from for months together.

But for S[outh] Australia & West Australia Müller lumped the Tropical & Temperate floras together, which makes them almost useless for my purpose.

If any book or person has separated these, I shall be very glad of the figures. If not I shall be content with the figures for N[ew] S[outh] Wales & [4] Victoria.

Your paper on the flora of the "Paramatta Valley" gave me exactly the information I wanted, and the sequence of the Orders is very interesting, as it is the only purely temperate flora I know of in which the orchids are first, and nearly doubles the Composites! I presume nearly all those orchids and most of the 178 N[ew] S[outh] Wales species¹ are found in the Coastal district, East of the mountain ranges only.

Any information you can send me I shall be glad of as quickly as you can manage, as I want to finish my M[anu]S[cript]S for press as soon as possible.

With best wishes | Yours very truly | Alfred R Wallace [signature]