Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
JHC600
JDH/1/9 f.745
Stapf, Otto
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
30-3-1909
© Descendants of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
Letters to Otto Stapf
The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
English
Original MS
4 page letter over 1 folio
 
Transcript

I must ask the Director*8 for the loan of Merrill's Identification of the species of Blanco's Flora*9 -- a work which I do not find in the Catalogue of the Kew Library.
With regard to citing numbers, they are useless except you add the special Herbarium to which they belong --
Herb[arium] Gov[ernmen]t Laboratories, 7 numbers
Herb[arium] Bureau of Science 14 ''
Herb[arium] Philippine Exposition Board -- 1[?] Herb[arium] Philippine normal school -- 1
Herb[arium] San Fernando School -- 1
Herb[arium] Exploration of Philippines -- 3
Of collectors there are
E.D. Merrill*10 & M.C.Merritt
We are delighted to hear that you both like your house.
Ev[er] sincerely y[our]s | Jos D Hooker [signature] p.t.o

Page 1


March 30 1909*1
THE CAMP,
NEAR SUNNINGDALE*2
My dear Stapf*3
Very many thanks f[or] your information regarding Loher*4.
I only yesterday finished a clavis of the Philippine species in the Kew & Philippine Herbaria; a most unsatisfactory performance. Of about 20 species, all but one belong to the pedicellate*5 [1 word illeg] group with opposite leaves below & verticillate*6 above. They are most difficult of discrimination (if indeed not all form[s] of one) & what is more, represent or are forms of species that run from Sumatra to New Guinea including Borneo. There is not what you would regard as a

Page 2

good character amongst them all. I think it will be best to keep the Philippines apart from the Malay Archipelago for practical & Herbarium purposes.
I shall be greatly interested in the additional specimens collected by Loher, & will take to dissecting them at once on arrival.
Meebold*7 writes from Calcutta that he is sending me his Indian Impatiens, some 50 or 60 species, to name & select from. He says "For a few I should be thankful if you would kindly return them, as I have no duplicates. The others please keep." I am to address him Alfred Meebold
Heidenheim a[n der] B[renz]
Württemburg, Germany.

Page 3

I must ask the Director*8 for the loan of Merrill's Identification of the species of Blanco's Flora*9 -- a work which I do not find in the Catalogue of the Kew Library.
With regard to citing numbers, they are useless except you add the special Herbarium to which they belong --
Herb[arium] Gov[ernmen]t Laboratories, 7 numbers
Herb[arium] Bureau of Science 14 ''
Herb[arium] Philippine Exposition Board -- 1[?] Herb[arium] Philippine normal school -- 1
Herb[arium] San Fernando School -- 1
Herb[arium] Exploration of Philippines -- 3
Of collectors there are
E.D. Merrill*10 & M.C.Merritt
We are delighted to hear that you both like your house.
Ev[er] sincerely y[our]s | Jos D Hooker [signature] p.t.o

Page 4

Please send with the Impatiens a few Genus covers.

ENDNOTES


1. A note in Hooker's hand records that he "repl[ied] 1.4.09"
2. The printed words "TELEGRAMS, WINDLESHAM." appear at an angle on the left hand side of the paper.
3. Otto Stapf (1857--1933). Austrian botanist and taxonomist, the son of Joseph Stapf, who worked in the Hallstatt salt-mines. He published the archaeological plant remains from the Late Bronze and Iron Age mines that had been uncovered by his father. Stapf moved to Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1890. He was keeper of the Herbarium from 1909 to 1920 and became a British citizen in 1905. He was awarded the Linnean Medal in 1927. In 1908 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
4. August Loher (1874--1930). German botanist who collected in Madagascar and the Philippines.
5. ie with a stalk; also known as pedunculated.
6. Forming a whorl or whorls. 7. Alfred Karl Meebold (1863--1952). German botanist.
8. Lieut-Col David Prain (1857--1944). Director of Kew, 1905--1922.
9. Elmer Drew Merrill, (1905), A review of the identifications of the species described in Blanco's Flora de Filipinas.
10. Elmer Drew Merrill (1876--1956). American botanist, specializing in the flora of the Asia-Pacific region.

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