LETTER 385. A.R. WALLACE TO CHARLES DARWIN.
March 8th, 1868.

...While writing a few pages on the northern alpine forms of plants on the
Java mountains I wanted a few cases to refer to like Teneriffe, where there
are no northern forms and scarcely any alpine. I expected the volcanoes of
Hawaii would be a good case, and asked Dr. Seemann about them. It seems a
man has lately published a list of Hawaiian plants, and the mountains swarm
with European alpine genera and some species! (385/1. "This turns out to
be inaccurate, or greatly exaggerated. There are no true alpines, and the
European genera are comparatively few. See my 'Island Life,' page 323."--
A.R.W.) Is not this most extraordinary, and a puzzler? They are, I
believe, truly oceanic islands, in the absence of mammals and the extreme
poverty of birds and insects, and they are within the Tropics.

Will not that be a hard nut for you when you come to treat in detail on
geographical distribution? I enclose Seemann's note, which please return
when you have copied the list, if of any use to you.


LETTER 386. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, February 21st [1870].

I read yesterday the notes on Round Island (386/1. In Wallace's "Island
Life," page 410, Round Island is described as an islet "only about a mile
across, and situated about fourteen miles north-east of Mauritius."
Wallace mentions a snake, a python belonging to the peculiar and distinct
genus Casarea, as found on Round Island, and nowhere else in the world.
The palm Latania Loddigesii is quoted by Wallace as "confined to Round
Island and two other adjacent islets." See Baker's "Flora of the Mauritius