THE CAMP, SUNNINGDALE
Feb 19/[18]96
My dear Dyer*1
If you think that I can be of any use I will gladly help: reviewing[?] the sheets of Icones, though I must own that my eyes are not so good as they were -- still I may here & there spot a blunder so big that others have overlooked it.
I would not trouble about Reeve -- if there is any chance of Dulam[?]resenting it -- for I know what good men Dulam[?] are, & how useful -- I do not see

William[']s & Norgates' name on the title page. The sales appear to me to be astoundingly irregular.
Do not think that I doubt Clarkes' identification; I think his work quite marvellous as respects both identification & nomenclature, -- as far as I could judge in reviewing the "index" in mss & proof, -- but he makes strange blunders in descriptions & drawings too! & often in descriptive language his style is very defective [.] Still I think his work so far is of surpassing use; & after all, except in theoretical morphology, he cannot ere err too wildly amongst Cyperaceae[?]

as amongst grasses, where such a multitude of organs, -- (often all 4 glumes of bothspikelets! besides habit & foliage,) have to be taken into account for each species. This reminds me that Stapf is staggered as to the bringing [of] the African grasses into moderate consensus[?] under the typographical limitations of the colonial flora: he evidently wants the style and typography of the Indian flora, though with no idea of causing carrying synonomy & citations to the portentous length that I have been obliged to resort to. Happily the Cape grasses do not admit of this. The bibliography is limited & he is quite content to confine himself to this & good plates. He rather however

affects the useless attempts at classifying varieties. Which with from Herb[ariu]m specimens is impossible to any good purpose[.]
I think the herbarium descriptive work of Hemsley, Brown & Rolfe is really excellent. -- Though I do wish you could limit on diagnoses proceeding the general descriptions where these are long -- which is not the case in the "Decas" just received where the descriptions are characters hold a good mean between a bold diagnosis & a description. If, as no doubt they are, these are careful, they quite suit the requirements of utility with speedy publication. -- 6-7 lines with a postscript of dimensions &c might be the rule.
I should have told you that

Littledale asked me whether he should send his plants / collected, within a march or two of Lhassa, to the Brit[ish]. Mu[seum]. or Kew! They have arrived, a charming collection. I enclose his letter which you had better keep.
I am very glad that the ♀ gardeners have give no trouble, & that Watson takes to them, all you say of him is true.
Apropos of the article on the Culture of Vegetables, what is wanted is the means of training the daughters of the local agri[cultural]. & laboring classes to that labor -- why should not the daughter of the labouring man cultivate his little plots of ground? Everywhere abroad

we see the women in the labourers plots. Technical Education turned into that direction would do more good than would the training of young Ladies to flower gardening.
Ever affectionately yours | Jos. D. Hooker [signature]
Mr. Darwin is vastly pleased with the "Index".