WCP7056

[1]

Old Orchard,

Broadstone,

Wimborne.

Sept. 26th, 1910.

T. F. Cheeseman Esq.

Dear Sir

Many thanks for your very interesting paper on the Flora of the Islands South of N Zealand. I am pleased to find that you accept my views of oceanic dispersal generally. I was much pleased to have [illeg.] views on the subject, which agree almost exactly with my own. Mr. Lydekker has again recently been claiming a land connection between S. America and Australia to explain the [2] Marsupials of Australian affinities (with opossums) found recently fossil in Patagonia, and living in the Andes of Ecuador! In a book of mine now going to press, I have again shown the impossibility of this view.

As an amateur gardener I have long wished to have some of the fine Pleurothallumus & the Chrysobactron Rossii in my garden, but as I have never seen a record of their having been grown in England I presume there is some special difficulty in growing them.

[3] I have lately had seeds of many Celmisias from[?] N. Zealand, — and have raised a few — almost all of C. verbascifolia. Most of the others refuse to germinate or to grow after a month[?] or two. Nor can I get Ranunculus Lyalli[sic] to germinate.

Your very fine work on the Flora of N. Zealand has been sent me by the Minister of Education, and is of the greatest use & interest. I have about 20 species of your Veronicas growing and flowering luxuriantly.

Yours very truly | Alfred R Wallace [signature]