Transcript
I am doing a good deal with the seeds & lateral sepals, but am sadly in want of fruits of many species.
The superfluity of pollen in most species is a remarkable character. On opening a tightly closed bud you find a mass of liberated pollen far greater in bulk[?] than all the anthers[?] put together & the difficulty is to account for the stigmas failing to get impregnated in bud -- these, the stigmas, 5 minute[?] teeth, are wedged in between the anthers & only in the form of a microscopic[?] cone & only [illeg.] presumably for fecundation after the flower opens, when of course cross fertilization has more[?] or less of its way -- but still the quantity of residual[?] pollen in the open flowers is so great, that they can hardly[?] except being self-fertilized. Probably they are so normally for I find no evidence of hybrids. I must see what has been written on the subject.
King*6 has not paid us his promised visit yet; he is in Paris I believe -- was looking remarkably well when I last saw him at the Herbarium.
July 24*1 1900.
THE CAMP,
SUNNINGDALE.
My dear Prain
This morning the welcome cargo of Cigars has safely arrived, & I hasten to thank you heartily for what you have done. Their contents will last me I expect to the end of my days, for as you know I am a very moderate though daily smoker.
I am still toiling at Impatiens a most thankless task. There are so many specimens which I do not know what to do with. The material I have is quite quadruple with what I had to work upon for Fl. B. Ind. [Flora Brit. India] & it reveals some
very important blunders. I am still at the N[orth] W[est] Indian species which are with few exceptions all different for the Sikkim. The examination of good specimens reveals a lot of "bad shots[?]" made with mutilated specimens in Fl. B.I. The Calcutta Herb[arium] is very poorly supplied with N. W. species.
The two worst-blunders I made were mixing up Miers’*2[?] tingens with the racemose DC*3. They are abundantly distinct; & not recognising Lindley's I. macrocheila, which I wrongly referred to as form var[iety] of Roylei, & which is Wallich's*4 sulcata & Edgeworth’s*5 gigantea. My great difficulty is the impossibility of making out the characters of the lateral petals (wings) which roll over one another in bud[?] & get twisted up with the tips of the standard & lip & in flower they get crumpled up before the specimen is laid into drying paper.
I am doing a good deal with the seeds & lateral sepals, but am sadly in want of fruits of many species.
The superfluity of pollen in most species is a remarkable character. On opening a tightly closed bud you find a mass of liberated pollen far greater in bulk[?] than all the anthers[?] put together & the difficulty is to account for the stigmas failing to get impregnated in bud -- these, the stigmas, 5 minute[?] teeth, are wedged in between the anthers & only in the form of a microscopic[?] cone & only [illeg.] presumably for fecundation after the flower opens, when of course cross fertilization has more[?] or less of its way -- but still the quantity of residual[?] pollen in the open flowers is so great, that they can hardly[?] except being self-fertilized. Probably they are so normally for I find no evidence of hybrids. I must see what has been written on the subject.
King*6 has not paid us his promised visit yet; he is in Paris I believe -- was looking remarkably well when I last saw him at the Herbarium.
We returned a week ago from Harrogate where I took Lady Hooker for relief from her gouty eczema, with excellent effect -- but she is still bothered with the drumming in the ears which Bromine alone alleviates of all the many remedies tried, she sends kindest regards. Her eldest (of 2) Joe*7 is off to the Cape to join the 2 Hampshires now at the front with Roberts.
Ever sincerely yours | Jos.D Hooker [signature]
The first numeral is unclear so the date could be 14 January.
John Miers (1789 -- 1879), botanist and civil engineer.
“DC” is the abbreviation given to specimens originally identified by Augustin Pyramus (or Pyrame) de Candolle (1778 -- 1841).
Nathaniel Wolff Wallich (1786 -- 1854) was a surgeon and botanist of Danish origin who worked in India. Part of Wallich's herbarium collections is held at Kew, known as the Wallich Herbarium which is the largest separate herbarium.
Michael Pakenham Edgeworth (1812 -- 1888) was born in Ireland and studied in Edinburgh. He joined the East India Company and from 1831 held a series of administrative posts in various parts of India. He also pursued his interest in botany, collecting plants in India, Sri Lanka and also in Aden. He contributed papers on the botany of India and Aden and the Indian Caryophyllaceae to the Flora of British India.
Sir George King (1840 --1909), superintendent of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta 1871 -- 1898 and the first Director of the Botanical Survey of India 1891-1898. In 1898 King was succeeded at the Calcutta Botanical Gardens by Sir David Prain. Previous letters refer to King’s illness.
Joseph Symonds Hooker (1877 -- 1940). Eighth child, fifth son of Joseph Hooker, first child of Joseph's second wife Hyacinth. He served in the Boer War under General Roberts.
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