MORE LETTERS OF CHARLES DARWIN

LETTER 378. J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN. Kew,

January 20th, 1867.

Prof. Miquel, of Utrecht, begs me to ask you for your carte, and

offers his in return. I grieve to bother you on such a subject. I am

sick and tired of this carte correspondence. I cannot conceive what

Humboldt's Pyrenean violet is: no such is mentioned in Webb, and

no alpine one at all. I am sorry I forgot to mention the stronger

African affinity of the eastern Canary Islands. Thank you for

mentioning it. I cannot admit, without further analysis, that most of

the peculiar Atlantic Islands genera were derived from Europe, and

have since become extinct there. I have rather thought that many are

only altered forms of existing European genera; but this is a very

difficult point, and would require a careful study of such genera and

allies with this object in view. The subject has often presented itself

to me as a grand one for analytic botany. No doubt its establishment

would account for the community of the peculiar genera on the

several groups and islets, but whilst so many species are common

we must allow for a good deal of migration of peculiar genera too.