Transcript
Jan[uary] 12 1901.
THE CAMP,
SUNNINGDALE.
My dear Prain
I have this day received the packet of Sikkim Impatiens & their seeds, for which many thanks -- They will be most useful, their flowers being available sopim for moisturising & analysing free of the curse of glue. But why load the sheets with those "specs[?]" of “candle lighters”; which are in some cases positively injurious to the specimens. It is a singular practice, confined to the Calcutta Herbarium, & to it only since Anderson's*1 demise.
I will distribute the seeds, not forgetting Thomson*2. There are enough of some to stock Europe[?]!*3
Jan[uary] 12 1901.
THE CAMP,
SUNNINGDALE.
My dear Prain
I have this day received the packet of Sikkim Impatiens & their seeds, for which many thanks -- They will be most useful, their flowers being available sopim for moisturising & analysing free of the curse of glue. But why load the sheets with those "specs[?]" of “candle lighters”; which are in some cases positively injurious to the specimens. It is a singular practice, confined to the Calcutta Herbarium, & to it only since Anderson's*1 demise.
I will distribute the seeds, not forgetting Thomson*2. There are enough of some to stock Europe[?]!*3
I am still laboring at the W[est] Himal[ayan] species, describing new species & unravelling the complex synonymy[?] of the old; correcting not a few blunders of my own. I now moisten & lay out the individual parts of the flower of almost every specimen to rectify the characters of the petals, which I regret to find an [stet] most important indication of affinity -- I think I told you that with the exception of I. Balsamina, all the W. Himal. species differ from the Eastern! & what is more curious, to the west of the Sutlej*4 I find a grass[?] with a different type of petal from any found between the Sutlej & Nepal. I shall be curious to know when I get to them whether this type reappears to the E[ast] of Nepal. I am urging Duthie*5 to send his
collector W[est] of the Sutlej for Impatiens & Iris especially -- it is really a scandal that after so many years of collecting in the N. W. Himal. -- these two fine genera are so imperfectly known. Of several Kashmiri the new species my materials are so bad that I cannot describe them. But indeed it is time that the attention of collectors all over India should be directed to certain genera especially. Brandis*6 tells me that Burma literally swarms with Impatiens -- & yet I doubt if we have a dozen species! Have you any collector there?.
Did I tell you of the mess in Wallich's type collection -- By the aid of better specimens from later collections I am clearing them up. I now find 5 species under I. racemosa DC., & thanks to a photograph from Cas DC*7, I have ascertained that DC’s*7 plant is represented in Herb[arium] Wall[ich]*8 by a specimen so small & bad could that I could did not do nothing with it. If you think it worth the trouble to send
me your Wallich specimens I will verify & return them. I have the loan of Wallich's from Linn. Soc.--here.
Collett*9 has had a stroke, but is better, & has been again at Kew -- he is printing his Simla flora, it will be a charming work the wood cuts are lovely.
The specimen of Impatiens from[?] Kummar[?] collected for me by Duthie are splendid[,] evidently cast[?] into paper as gathered -- each with a little folded paper containing its sepals & petals dried separately. I often think that if you had had a set of Pedicularis with the flowers separately dried, how much labor[stet] you would have been[stet] saved. I feel sure that every collector should carry a few sheets of paper in a waterproof bag (in case of rain) to lay in such delicate things as gathered. Can you enlist any one in Burma on such a task[?].
How you must be sick of me & of Balsams. With Lady H’s kindest regards[.]
Yours[?] | Jos.D Hooker [signature]
1. Thomas Anderson (1832-1870). Took temporary charge of the Calcutta Botanic Garden during the absence of Dr Thomas Thomson, whom he succeeded as director.
2. William Thompson (1823? -- 1903) a botanist and plant grower who entered into partnership with John Morgan, forming the Ipswich based company Thomson and Morgan that is still in existence today.
3. There is a sentence written vertically in the left margin “I long to be at the Sikkim Balsams. I hope to write a separate paper on them. How to classify the horde of species for[?] all circumstances[?] passes my comprehension.”
4. The Sutlej or Satluj River is the longest of the five rivers that flow through the Punjab in northern India and Pakistan.
5. John Firminger Duthie (1845 -- 1922). English botanist and explorer who was Superintendent of Saharanpur Botanical Gardens in Uttar Pradesh, India, from 1875 – 1903.
6. Sir Dietrich Brandis (1824 -- 1907). A German-British botanist and forestry academic and administrator, who worked with the British Imperial Forestry Service in colonial India for nearly 30 years. He later taught at The Royal Indian Engineering College at Cooper's Hill, near Egham, Surrey.
7. Anne Casimir Pyramus (1836 -- 1918) was a Swiss botanist (commonly abbreviated C.DC or Cas DC), the son of Alphonse Pyramus de Candolle (abbreviated A.DC) and grandson of Augustin de Candolle (abbreviated DC). The second DC appears to refer to a plant collected by his grandfather.
8. 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
9. Sir Henry Collett (1836 -- 1901), a British soldier and botanist. He was a major general in the Indian army. At his death he was working on a book on the flora of Simla, which was published posthumously as Flora Simlensis (1902).
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