JDH is pleased that Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer [WTTD] has appointed Allen[?] & asks if he will have Jurd's house. He reports that [Reverend William Samuel] Symonds' health has improved. JDH, [Daniel] Oliver & [John Reader] Jackson have been calculated that it will take 4 years work to revise Ernst Gottlieb von Steudel [NOMENCLATOR BOTANICUS]. JDH may begin working on Euphorbias to go into the manuscript, with occasional visits to the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew for this work. JDH comments on a collection which has just arrived from Morocco & offers to send the collector a copy of his & John Ball's publication [of their tour of Morocco]. Sir Hussey Vivian has sent JDH Rhododendron falconeri & R. hodgsonia, they are unfortunately withered but the leaves will go to [George] Nicholson for his arboretum collection. JDH thanks WTTD for sending him plants including Rhododendron edgworthia.
Transcript
it shall cost no more & "Deo favente" be completed by the time.
I think of going tomorrow to the wild west! I have a great many new species of the first genera[?] of Euphorbs. to dissect & work into the mss [manuscript] & to revise the clavis of genera, which will occupy me here for some days; but I shall be at Kew now & then.
What a lovely collection from Morocco has just come in! -- I wish we could get the collector to visit the higher atlas. If he has not a copy of 'Hooker & Ball'*3 I will gladly order one to be sent to him.
THE CAMP,
SUNNINGDALE
15 May 1887
Dear Dyer*1
I am unfeignedley glad to hear of your having secured Allen[?]. Will he have Jurd's house? -- It might be wise, for a time at least, that he saw you or Morris at your office daily, at stated periods, whether he had anything to report or not, & say what he is about.
Symonds has rallied wonderfully & talks of coming back here!
Oliver & I again went into the Steudel*2 matter with Jackson before concluding the new arrangement, & tried a revision of the work
by taking a test genera of some 25 rather bad species & found that it took about a minute a species -- which would absorb more than a year at that rate, perhaps two -- but then the Mono & oligo typic would require no correcting or further verification & some large genera are practically done to hand.
On the other hand we cannot make out that 3 years are wanted to work in what books remain to be done. The result is that behind[?] the two operations, the 4 years should amply suffice. I shall require an assurance from Jackson that
it shall cost no more & "Deo favente" be completed by the time.
I think of going tomorrow to the wild west! I have a great many new species of the first genera[?] of Euphorbs. to dissect & work into the mss [manuscript] & to revise the clavis of genera, which will occupy me here for some days; but I shall be at Kew now & then.
What a lovely collection from Morocco has just come in! -- I wish we could get the collector to visit the higher atlas. If he has not a copy of 'Hooker & Ball'*3 I will gladly order one to be sent to him.
Sir Hussey Vivian has just sent me trusses of R[hododendron]. falconeri & Hodgsonia that are marvellous, but all withered, I will keep the leaves for Nicholson's "Arboretum Herbarium".
Thanks for the coming 200 I will see to their division. The big ones you sent me have had a bad time of it, but Edgworthia is uninjured, I have protected all.
Love to Harriet
E[ve]r aff[ectionatel]y y[ou]rs | J D Hooker [signature]
1. Sir William Thiselton-Dyer (1843--1928). British botanist and third Director of the Royal Botanic gardens, Kew (1885--1905). He succeeded Joseph Hooker in the role after serving as his Assistant Director for ten years. He also married Hooker's eldest daughter Harriet in 1877.
2. Probably refers to Ernst Gottlieb von Steudel's Nomenclator Botanicus (1821-- 1824), an alphabetical listing of approximately 40,000 species of plants, representing all known species to the year 1840. In his 1880 report on the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, Joseph Hooker appealed for clerical help to keep the interleaved copy of the Nomenclator up to date. It was later superseded by the Index Kewensis.
3. John Ball (1818--1889). Irish politician, naturalist and alpine traveller. Under Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1855--1857, in which role he advanced the natural sciences including aiding efforts to publish colonial floras. A keen naturalist he published papers on botany and glaciers but is best remembered as an alpinist. He travelled to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco with Joseph Hooker in 1871. Their joint work describing the trip: Journal of a Tour if Marocco and the Great Atlas was published in 1878.
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