WCP3889

[1]

Old Orchard,

Broadstone,

Wimborne.

Oct^r. 21st. 1909

Dear Mr. Ridley¹

Thanks for your interesting letter of Aug. 29 — and for the booklet on 'Xmas Island.² I am especially interested in your observations on seed-distribution. I think however you do not give sufficient weight to wind-carriage, limiting ^it to Orchids Ferns &c. But numbers of plants have seeds light enough to be carried hundreds, perhaps [2] thousands of miles by wind. Such as some Crucifers, Saxifrages, Scrophs, Gesneraceae, &c. while many not minute seeds are flat or hollowed with dilated margins well adapted for long flights. Again, the absence of any groups of plants from an oceanic island is no proof whatever that the seeds have not reached it, since, not only may the conditions be unsuitable, as you point out, but the island may have been already stocked by floating & wind-carried seeds, and then new comers will have very [3] little chance. But the vegetates of Oceanic Islands are ^is, as it were, the bye-products of Nature.

Seeds have been adapted to various kinds of dispersal in competition, with other plants in the same country, and these adaptations have become so perfect that no island is so remote as not to become covered with a more or less varied vegetation.

What a disgraceful thing is the reckless destruction of forests by ignorant Governors! A love of nature & some knowledge of the functions of vegetation as regards soil & climate at all [4] events should be a qualification for the Governorship of any of our Colonies, especially of those in the tropics.

Hoping I may live to see you here some day —

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]