Transcript
in the compartment to the right left: but the latter may have been shifted just before I left & so you had better not trouble about it. The so called stipules*17 of Ficus*18 I must talk about with you, they appear to me wholly in the wrong place for such organs, it is not their sheathing I object to, but their position. Pray look at them. I have been studying vegetable anatomy a little & slicing wood, that of a Chilean pine, is next to the Yew the one of the toughest of all conifers, it is from King*19, & out of flower, perhaps young Alerse*20. I dined with Jas Wilson*21 yesterday and met a brother of Christiansen's, not a nice man. Parnell*22 was there & makes the Leolerias[?] quite distinct now, but I have no opinion of either his discrimination or judgement. Do you know he was with poor Wm *23 in Jamaica & they were very much together: both had fever at same time[.]
I have written to Yarmouth today[.]
20 Abercrombie Place Edinburgh
Mar 12 1845
Mr Dear Father*1
I am again obliged for your two letters & sundries. I wrote to you two days ago & enclosed Sinclairs*2 & Gunn's*3. I do not know whether you would come to see one of Thomson's that came yesterday or no, for I sometimes think that it is boring you to send these things down up. Another answer I communicated to you is in its original luminous form, v. treasoness[?], he has said no more.
I am glad that Harvey*5 has taken so well what you said to him about the lithographing, it [e]xhalts one's opinion of him very much; for it was impossible to be over-prudent in such a case when truth is required. As to the copies of the Cryptogamia Antarctica*6 one goes to Berkely[sic]*7,Harvey, Taylor*8, Decaisne*9 and Montagne*10. I think that
that is all, but am not sure that I did not send one to Ross*11. In the little book with [(]notes of books given away) is a list of what numbers P. Albert*12 & Lord Minto*13 have had: but if there is any difficulty you would perhaps write to the latter as he is the person to whom I am most indebted of any; & with whom I should like the book to appear well.
I am so glad that the Tussack[?]*13a arrived, we have 5 specimens of it here, I wish you could send us some of the seed when it arrives: & if you can find a specimen dried please send it by Dayman*14; I think there is one in the top drawer of the cabinet next or left to that where the Araucaria*15 was: many here are anxious to see it: if not there [are] others in the parcel (large brown paper) full[?] of it in the cabinet nex[t] to the door in Fitch's*16 room
in the compartment to the right left: but the latter may have been shifted just before I left & so you had better not trouble about it. The so called stipules*17 of Ficus*18 I must talk about with you, they appear to me wholly in the wrong place for such organs, it is not their sheathing I object to, but their position. Pray look at them. I have been studying vegetable anatomy a little & slicing wood, that of a Chilean pine, is next to the Yew the one of the toughest of all conifers, it is from King*19, & out of flower, perhaps young Alerse*20. I dined with Jas Wilson*21 yesterday and met a brother of Christiansen's, not a nice man. Parnell*22 was there & makes the Leolerias[?] quite distinct now, but I have no opinion of either his discrimination or judgement. Do you know he was with poor Wm *23 in Jamaica & they were very much together: both had fever at same time[.]
I have written to Yarmouth today[.]
I dined with Pat Neill*24 the other day, he is an [e]xcellent old fellow[.] I met Fleming of Flisk*25 then & Goodwin[?] brother of him in Erebus*26 a very superior Comp. anatomist. Today I dine with Gordon*27 and tomorrow with the Coventry's[sic]*28[.] Will you tell Mamma*29 that Sophie Mack*30 is quite ready to go South on her visit to Kew, when agreeable, I did not offer to escort her on my return, as I hardly know how that will be yet: she has grown up very tall & thin but much more genteel looking than her sisters.
It is from want of books that I cannot get on with the cont. Introd[uction] to Ant[arctic] Flora; as well as the pressure of other things, I will not say what when going out seems so necessary here & Graham*31 says I must go out dining. I will however try to do something: but it is no joke having to write up Respiration, circulation, Irritability, Life & such vegetable wonders, which the students here so delight in I must say far more than in terminology or Systematic
Botany I am very sorry to say for my own sake. Graham's notions on physiology are heterodox & unsupported by experiments of his own, so you may imagine me at times in a pretty fix, between my own mind, my master & my men.
Ranunculus rutillifolius I named after rutilla*32, I think, a spade, yours of trullifolius, if not preoccupied, is incomparably better & I am much obliged for noteing[sic] it. What am I to do with the little Cruciferous with long funiculi ? it always was a puzzle to me it is from the Falklands.
Pray thank Mamma for her letters & always sending me the news paper, it does nicely to read in omnibusses. The weather is hot & sultry today threatens thunder & rain.
Ever you most affectionate son Jos. D. Hooker [signature]
1. Sir William Jackson Hooker (1841--1865). Joseph Dalton Hooker's father. Regius Professor of Botany at Glasgow University from 1820 to 1841 and the first Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 1841 until his death in 1865, upon which his son Joseph succeeded him as Director.
2. Andrew Sinclair (1794--1861). British surgeon notable for his botanical collections. He served as New Zealand's second Colonial Secretary.
3. Reverend John Gunn (1801--1890). Amateur naturalist especially interested in geology with great knowledge of the geology of East Anglia. Founder and first President of the Norwich Geological Society. Joseph Hooker's Uncle: husband of Harriet Gunn née Turner, Joseph Hooker's maternal aunt.
4. Thomas Thomson (1817--1878), surgeon with the East India Company before becoming a botanist. Friend of Hooker who travelled with him in India and helped him to write the first volume of Flora Indica.
5. William Henry Harvey (1811--1866). Irish botanist who specialised in algae. Lifelong friend of Sir William Jackson Hooker. Harvey was curator of the Trinity College Herbarium and Professor of Botany at the Royal Dublin Society.
6. Cryptogamia Antarctica or Cryptogamic plants of the Antarctic Islands, part of Hooker's Flora Antarctica issued separately in one volume published by Lovell Reeve and Co in 1845.
7. Miles Joseph Berkeley (1803--1889). English cryptogamist and clergyman, and one of the founders of the science of plant pathology.
8. Thomas Taylor (1775--1848). English botanist, bryologist and mycologist. Elected fellow of Linnean Society 1814, honorary member of Royal Irish Academy. Botanical researches were mainly among mosses, liverworts and lichens. Published Muscologia Britannica with Sir William Jackson Hooker and wrote cryptogamic matter for Joseph Dalton Hooker's Flora Antarctica. His herbarium, of over 8000 sheets, and his drawings are held by the Boston Society of Natural History. Sir William Hooker named the genus of mosses Tayloria, after him.
9. Joseph Decaisne (1807--1882). French botanist and agronomist.
10. Jean Pierre François Camille Montagne (1784--1866). French military physician and botanist who specialized in the fields of bryology and mycology.
11. Sir James Clark Ross (1800--1862). British naval officer and explorer known for his exploration of the polar regions. Captain of the Antarctica expedition of 1839-1843, comprising the vessels HMS 'Erebus' and 'Terror'. Joseph Dalton Hooker was the expedition's assistant surgeon on the 'Erebus'.
12. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819--1861). Husband of Queen Victoria and therefore Prince Consort.
13. Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 2nd Earl of Minto (1782 –1859). Styled as Viscount Melgund between 1813 and 1814, was a British diplomat and Whig politician.
13a. Possibly refers to Tussac Grass. The scientific name for the Falkland Island Tussac Grass is Poa flabellata. Joseph Hooker was credited with its 'discovery' during the Antarctica expedition and it caused some excitement and speculation about its potential as a commercial plant, for fodder & fibres, which would grow in inhospitable climates. It is native to South America and the Falklands where it grows in clumps in wet coastal areas. It has been introduced into Scotland.
14. Lieutenant Joseph Dayman (1818-1868). Artist and Mate of the HMS 'Erebus' on its voyage to Antarctica 1839--1843, Hooker considered him the best artist on the Antarctic voyage. He ran a telegraph survey line on HMS 'Cyclops' across the Atlantic Ocean marking a new era in ocean exploration, the beginning of systematic surveys.
15. Araucaria; a genus of evergreen coniferous trees in the family Araucariaceae.
16. Walter Hood Fitch (1817--1892). Botanical illustrator born Glasgow. Executed 10,000 drawings for various publications. Worked in colour lithography, including 2,700 illustrations for Curtis' Botanical Magazine over 40 years. William Hooker, as editor brought Fitch to the magazine. Fitch produced up to 200 plates per year.
17. Stipule (Latin stipula: straw, stalk): a term coined by Linnaeus which refers to outgrowths borne on either side (sometimes just one side) of the base of a leafstalk (the petiole).
18. Latin ficus, an old name for edible fig.
19. Sir George King (1840--1909). Superintendent of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta and Cinchona cultivation in Bengal, 1871-1898. First Director of the Botanical Survey of India, 1890-1898. Awarded the Linnean Medal in 1901. Recognized for his work in the cultivation of cinchona and for setting up a system for the inexpensive distribution of quinine throughout India through the postal system.
20. Alerce is a common name for Fitzroya cupressoides, a towering tree species native to the Andes mountains.
21. James Wilson (1795--1856). Scottish zoologist, investigating natural history of fish of Scotland, particularly herring. One of the first to use the term "evolution" in the context of biological speciation.
22. Richard Parnell (1810-1882), doctor, botanist, zoologist, ichthyologist and specialist taxonomist Agrostologist. An authority fishes and grasses, Parnell published two noted works - Prize Essay on the Natural and Economical History of the Fishes Marine, Fluviatile, and Lacustrine, of the River District of the Firth of Forth (Edinburgh: Neill and Co., 1838) and The Grasses of Britain, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1842-1845). He continued collecting for many years.
23. William Dawson Hooker (1816--1840). Medical doctor, brother of Joseph D Hooker, died in Jamaica of yellow fever.
24. Patrick Neill (1776--1851). Scottish printer and horticulturalist, known as a naturalist. A founding member, and the first secretary, of both the Wernerian Natural History Society (1808--49) and the Caledonian Horticultural Society (1809--49), he is mainly remembered today for having endowed the Neill Medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
25. Dr Andrew Fleming (1822--1901). Surgeon of Bengal Establishment, East India Company, 1844. Geologist; mapped Salt Range, India and collected plants there and in Murree Hills, c.1850. Retired as Surgeon Major 4th Regiment, Punjab Cavalry, 1873. (son of Rev John Fleming 1785--1857).
26. Erebus -see 11.
27. Reverend George Gordon (1801--1893) of Birnie. Studied natural history, geology, botany and theology at Edinburgh. Botanist and geologist, published and corresponded with William Hooker.
28. Col J Coventry botanist, plant collector.
29. Lady Maria Hooker née Turner (1797--1872). Wife of William Jackson Hooker, Mother of Joseph Dalton Hooker.
30. Possibly Sophia Mack the daughter of Rev John Mack (born Edinburgh) and Mary Mack, who were in Bengal.
31. Robert Graham (1786--1845). Scottish physician and botanist. A major figure in the creation of Glasgow Botanic Gardens and inaugural chair of botany at Glasgow University in 1818. Professor of Botany and Medicine at Edinburgh University, 1820--1845 during which time he was also Physician to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh.
32. Rutila (latin) meaning red, golden red, reddish yellow.
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