Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
JHC757
The Camp, Sunningdale, Berkshire, United Kingdom
HNR/2/1/3 f.92-93
Ridley, Henry Nicholas
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
20-9-1889
© Descendants of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
Letters to H. N. Ridley
The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
English
Original MS
8 page letter over 2 folios
 
Transcript

eye is almost crushing, & you will be surprised to hear that I find the microscopic[?] analysis & soaking laying out & drawing of unidentifiable specimens the least troublesome part of the whole for that I do at home undistracted by having to consult books drawings & specimens & [word illeg] in [word illeg], or by the writing out of descriptions. It [4 words illeg] of specimens turned over & over again.
I am going to offer you the loan of proof sheets of HF Orchidea as they appear; if you will kindly return them eventually -- but I must remind you that they are the first proofs & heaps[?] of alternatives are introduced into the [word illeg] & after second[?] [word illeg] -- I shall want them returned because I keep all proofs & [word illeg]; they often enable me to trace my own[?] blunders but it will be time enough to return them to me when the part is out.
I have the great pleasure of having Col Collett*8 with me here, a keen naturalist & excellent collector. He goes out soon to take the command of the Assam division & will reside in the Khasea[?]. I have to explain the wild society[?] between Assam & [word illeg]

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Sept 20/[18]89 The Camp Sunningdale*1
Dear Mr Ridley*2
My answer Sept 10 to your first of Aug 7th crossed one of mine (Sept 10) to you your second[?] [word illeg] & I have now to [word illeg] [word illeg] that second[?] of Aug 7, & the drawing & specimens which latter arrived this morning.
Before going further let me tell you that I at once enquired about the [word illeg] parcel of dried plants you had sent & was annoyed[?] to find that the Orchids had been put aside [2 words illeg], but by inadvertence were replaced in the bundle! I have not ever told you [word illeg]! It is all right now & I have examined them all. The Thelasis is no doubt, as you suspect[?] Blumea T[helasis] carinata[?] -- the Oxyanthacae[?] (for I must keep up that genus[?]) is quite rare [words illeg]. So is the little Erica[?] a [word illeg] species. I am delighted to know that [word illeg] is in[?] the[?] bundle; though I cannot undertake it[?] till I have finished the Orchidacae.
With regard to the portfolio of interesting things & excellent analyses that arrived this morning, I will see to them at once

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and tell you about [word illeg] before I close this letter, but it will take some time to do them all.
The drawings are indeed valuable [about 10 illeg words crossed out] I will get them copied for our Herbarium; & so[?] will any others you may send. The more I see the more I feel sure that without[?] analytic drawings it [word illeg] be hopeless to name Orchids with any confidence. The Kew collection of drawings is unrivalled, & yet I do not know what I should have done without the loan of the Calcutta ones.
I have printed off [word illeg] & should like to publish any new ones of yours with your name & authority in [word illeg] Plantarum -- I could easily [word illeg] up the diagnoses.-- But I do hope the time may

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come when you will get your Gov[ernmen]t to aid you in publishing colored[?] drawings of your Orchids. The [4 words illeg] & in great perplexity. The sketches & drawings of [word illeg] & you send will be great aids. King sent me [word illeg] species the other day, put up according to the new fashion in paper soaked in spirit enclosed in a tin case -- I do not find I can make [word illeg] best [word illeg] by carefully[?] soaked dried specimens -- & as it is impossible[?] for the collector to know whether the plant he finds is worth the trouble & space required for[?] this process I cannot think it advisable to encourage it. For major things as [word illeg], Aroids & it is no doubt [word illeg].
I was analysing [word illeg] yesterday & dreadfully puzzled so your drawings are particularly welcome. I have Wights type of A indice [rest of line missing from scan]

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before I close this.
What is Griffiths*3 [word illeg] caulescens? There is a specimen so called from Griffith in Herb. [word illeg]. I doubt the leaves being Orchidaceous[?]. They are detached and do not agree with Griffith's description. There is nothing else but but A [word illeg] & [word illeg] of [2 words illeg] minute like [word illeg] but the bracts are quaquaversal. Can it be your new [word illeg]?
You ask what hints I can give you as to working. Really you seem to be on the right tack as to drawing -- and as to descriptions I would say study style & avoid the now prevalent way of dividing species colloquially.

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Brown[?]*4, Lindl[e]y*5 & my father*6 all studied a terse uniform style & Lindleys little pamphlet entitled "Descriptive Botany" is admirable -- have you it? - if not I must try & get you a copy. The flabby[?] style of the descriptions in [2 words illeg] disquiet me. -- The object is to spin out & get paid by the length of the communication. It is [2 words illeg] how an attention to style facilitates the recognition of a species & how it condenses the description. Say it is a leaf to be described; 1st position, 2 petiolatia -- 3 form; 4th margins 5 surface [words illeg] 7 color 6 [word illeg]*7 -- & only deviate from this order when the remarkable character of any point is so prominent that by bringing it earlier your diagnoses[?] save the reader the trouble of going further in getting at his species. I introduce dimensions largely into the diagnoses[?]; it so often at once serves to help the reader to stop at the species or to go on to the next. When naming plants I often sacrifice natural arrangement to

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artificial in classifying masses of troublesome species; for the first object of a Flora is to enable you to get at your species with the least time & trouble -- & it is always easy to say after a species thus[?] put out of natural position that its real place is [2 words illeg] with or near such another or such others.
Now you are not to suppose that I am a model writer after this fashion! I only wish I were, but I do keep the rules more or less before me, & if I had time to take more pains I would vastly improve my own diagnoses & descriptions. But the fact is that these Indian Orchids have well nigh exhausted me & I am not half through. The mere [2 words illeg] of sorting & keeping under the eye the vast collections of specimens some on loan others not fastened down & the various collections of drawings, maps & books that I have to keep [word illeg] with under my

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eye is almost crushing, & you will be surprised to hear that I find the microscopic[?] analysis & soaking laying out & drawing of unidentifiable specimens the least troublesome part of the whole for that I do at home undistracted by having to consult books drawings & specimens & [word illeg] in [word illeg], or by the writing out of descriptions. It [4 words illeg] of specimens turned over & over again.
I am going to offer you the loan of proof sheets of HF Orchidea as they appear; if you will kindly return them eventually -- but I must remind you that they are the first proofs & heaps[?] of alternatives are introduced into the [word illeg] & after second[?] [word illeg] -- I shall want them returned because I keep all proofs & [word illeg]; they often enable me to trace my own[?] blunders but it will be time enough to return them to me when the part is out.
I have the great pleasure of having Col Collett*8 with me here, a keen naturalist & excellent collector. He goes out soon to take the command of the Assam division & will reside in the Khasea[?]. I have to explain the wild society[?] between Assam & [word illeg]

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when Griffith did so much under such difficulties.
By the way, I must have specimens before I describe species -- so please always[?] accompany your drawings or descriptions with specimens -- They are the only really safe [2 words illeg] for species. I must get a thicker paper to write upon -- I hate receiving letters on translucent paper & have no business to inflict it on you.
On second thoughts I will send this & the proof sheets before waiting to send [word illeg] the names of the plants & drawings, which will take a little time.
V[er]y sinc[erel]y y[ou]r[s] | Jos D Hooker [signature]

ENDNOTES


1. The Camp was the residence Joseph Hooker had built in Sunningdale, Berkshire. Completed in 1882 he lived there full time, with his second wife Hyacinth and their family, after retiring from RBG Kew in 1885.
2. Henry Nicholas Ridley (1855--1956). English botanist, geologist and naturalist who spent much of his life in Singapore, where he was the first Scientific Director in charge of botanical gardens. In this role he introduced rubber as a commercial product to Malaysia & improved the method of tapping. He explored widely around Penang & Malacca. He retired to England in 1911 and worked on a five volume flora of the Malay Peninsula, published from 1922 to 1925. In 1930 he published a seminal work on plant dispersal: The Dispersal of Plants Throughout the World.
3. Possibly William Griffith (1810 --1845), botanist, superintendent of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, 1842 -- 1844. Griffith's manuscripts and what survived of his plant collections stored in the cellars of the East India Company in London were rescued by Joseph Hooker in 1858.
4. Possibly Nicholas Edward Brown (1849 -- 1934) born in Redhill and educated at the Grammar School in Reigate where on leaving school he assisted in the private museum of Wilson Saunders a local naturalist and horticulturalist. In 1863 he became an assistant in the Herbarium at Kew of which he was Assistant Keeper from 1909-1914. He was noted for his taxonomic work on succulents, Asclepiads and Cape plants; for this last he was awarded the Captain Scott Memorial medal by the South African Biological Society and in 1932 an honorary D.Sc by the University of Witwartersrand.
5. Possibly John Lindley (1799 -- 1865), botanist and horticulturist,
6. 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.
7. Hooker originally made colour 6th but then changed it to 7th
8. Sir Henry Collett (1836 --1901), army officer in the East India Company and botanist, He collected plants in Afghanistan, Algeria, Burma, the Canaries, Corsica, India, Java, and Spain. He was made a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1879, and published the results of his botanical work in the southern Shan States, Burma, in the society's journal. He was an original member of the Simla Naturalists' Society. He retired from the army in 1893 and then worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens herbarium, Kew.
Please note that work on this transcript is ongoing. Users are advised to study electronic image(s) of this document where possible. If users identify any errors in the transcript, please contact archives@kew.org.

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