When, at a much later period, on coming to the
end of my work, I determined to give a chapter to the New Zealand flora
in order to see how far the geological and physical relations between
New Zealand and Australia would throw light on its origin, I went for my
facts to the works of Sir Joseph Hooker and Mr. Bentham, and also to
your article in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," and worked out my
conclusions solely from these, and from the few facts referring to the
migration of plants which I had collected. Had I referred again to your
lecture I should certainly have quoted the cases you give (in a note, p.
431) of plants extending along the Andes from California to Peru and
Chile, and vice versa. Whatever identity there is in our views was
therefore arrived at independently, and it was an oversight on my part
not referring to your views, partly due to your not having made them a
more prominent feature of your very interesting and instructive lecture.
Working as I do at home, I am obliged to get my facts from the few books
I can get together; and I only attempted to deal with these great
botanical questions because the facts seemed sufficiently broad and
definite not to be much affected by errors of detail or recent additions
to our knowledge, and because the view which I took of the past changes
in Australia and New Zealand seemed calculated to throw so much light
upon them.
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