RECORD: Darwin, C. R. n.d. Abstract of Bromfield in Phytologist vol. 3. CUL-DAR73.100-102. Edited by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/).

REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed from the Darwin Online microfilm by Kees Rookmaaker, edited by John van Wyhe 3.2014. RN1

NOTE: Bromfield, William Arnold. 1850. A catalogue of the plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occasional notes and observations on some of the more remarkable species. Phytologist: A Popular Botanical Miscellany 3: 817-854, 882-917, 951-986.

Reproduced with the permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin. The volumes CUL-DAR 72-75 contain Darwin's abstracts of scientific books and journals.


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p. 830. Dr Bromfield remarks that those localities are not the richest in species where the vegetation is most luxuriant: indeed the most unpromising sports to the eye, barren sandy fields & wastes often yield an ampler harvest than the very green wood conceals beneath its leafy bowers. So Humboldt has remarked that the damp forests of the Orinoco produce a majestic vegetation, but far poorer in number of species than the burnt-up campos of Brazil - again the astonishing number of plants which crowd the arid shores of the Mediterranean, is perhaps almost equal to number of species in Tropics. — Experience fully proves that a wet & cloudy climate, however mild & agreeable, sustains a flora distinguisged usually by great luxuriance, but by a remarkable paucity of species. — Mr Watson found northern British forms constituting a larger proportion of the azorian vegetation. I shd think all the above was accounted for by uniformity & non uniformity of conditions. Periods of drought & damp alone makes astonishing difference. — clear sky makes heat in day & also at night effect animal kingdom also.

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p. 837. Dr Bromfield agrees with Babington only 2 British Ulmus, viz. U. suberosa & U. montana. The Former with all its vars. marked by disposition to emit slots & hence perhaps seldom coming to perfection, the back always deeply cracked & wehn young branches winged. The U. montana & its vars. U. glabra &c. has smooth bark, few or no suckers, & is increased by fruit. Mr Knight raised several of the supposed species of Elms according to Bentham from the seed of one kind alone. —

p. 883. Dr Bromfield on Quercus robur & sessiliflora, says all the characters are so fluctuating "as fairly to induce suspicion of their being really distinct." Still as Mr Bree has remarked in Loud. Arbr. Brit. "though there are sessile oaks bearing fruit on peduncles, and pedunculated oaks bearing almost sessile fruit, there is yet a certain indescribable something about the trees, by means of which I can always distinguish each, without minutely examining either the acorns or the leaf-stalks." Dr B. says

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says the most constant characters of Q. sessiliflora which he has found "are those of the fruit & leaf-stalk, for although the acorns are often in Q. sessiliflora elevated on a very distinct peduncle, I have never seen the latter anything like so slender & elongated as in Q. robur, notwithstanding that this last sometimes bears its acorns on an abbreviated stalk very similar to the occasional one of Q. sessiliflora."

This is a splendid case to enlarge on, such a great prominent, valuable & well known object. —

p. 966. Dr Bromfield remarks that many tropical genera, as passiflora, Dioscorea, & even tropical families as Palms have 1 or more outlying species that extend far into the temperate zone: so with plants having their chief seat in S. Europe, as Narcissus, Gladiolus, Iris, Daphne & others have representatives in the middle parallels of our continent. —


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Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

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