Transcript
many years ago -- if not let me know. Lady Hooker desires[?] her very kind regards, & thanks for the admirable photograph which you have sent to her. We have not heard where Mrs Prain has taken up her abode, but I am asking King. Dyer is driving the two African floras ahead fast[?]. I am printing Orchids of Trimen´s*3 Flora & am well on ahead, having completed Eriocaulon (a twister) & Cyperaceae for Ceylon [Sri Lanka] Gramineae I am terribly in want of habitat & local information. My impression of the Flora is that it is very imperfectly known as yet. The death of Kirk*4 who was printing his N[ew] Zeald[Zealand] Flora, is a great loss to Botany -- I hear to day from Hector*5, that he had got as far as Compositae, & that the remainder of the MS[manuscript] is in form of notes only!
We are all well, but my deafness is alarmingly increased of late! Just at present I cannot converse) [stet]
Ever sincerely yours | Jos. D. Hooker [signature]
Marine Villa
South Terrace
Littlehampton
May 10/[18]98
My dear Prain
I have yours of 8 & 29th April to thank you for, & also to announce the arrival of the completion of Vol. viii of the Annals, for which I am indeed very much obliged.
You ask of my opinion of King´s*1 present state of health. I have not seen him yet for I could not get to London during his short stay there; but I heard from Collett*2 & others who went to see him, that he was really not in a dangerous condition at all, & that his worst symptoms, the
blood spitting especially had completely disappeared. I wrote to him begging him to come to us, and he answered quite cheerfully. That friends had arranged to carry him off to the sea[?] coast[?] at once; & I had a letter from him, a few days ago from Southsea, in which he says that he is "decidedly improving." That he had no return of Indian fever "&" none whatever of haemoptysis, "that he is very careful not to go out during the E[ast] winds and that his friends were thinking of taking him on to Bournemouth - to which place I had originally suggested his going. I am writing to make further enquiry from himself, & if I hear
anything of consequence I will let you know at once – Collett & others who saw him very[?] shortly after his arrival, were impressed to find him so little altered, & that he bore up so well after the terrible shock of his poor wife's disease*1. I am delighted to hear of the improved medallion portraits of King & Cunningham, towards which I enclose a double subscription, that is, if, as I hope, the enclosed cheque = R. 50 -- if not please let me know. One of the R 25. would appear is my subscription, the other as that of a friend, in whatever way you think best. I shall be greatly interested, in the receipe[?] of the medallions. They could be replicated in Wedgewood Ware at a very moderate cost. By the way has the Garden got the little Wedgewood Medallion of my father? (blue and white) which I had executed[?] in wood[?]
many years ago -- if not let me know. Lady Hooker desires[?] her very kind regards, & thanks for the admirable photograph which you have sent to her. We have not heard where Mrs Prain has taken up her abode, but I am asking King. Dyer is driving the two African floras ahead fast[?]. I am printing Orchids of Trimen´s*3 Flora & am well on ahead, having completed Eriocaulon (a twister) & Cyperaceae for Ceylon [Sri Lanka] Gramineae I am terribly in want of habitat & local information. My impression of the Flora is that it is very imperfectly known as yet. The death of Kirk*4 who was printing his N[ew] Zeald[Zealand] Flora, is a great loss to Botany -- I hear to day from Hector*5, that he had got as far as Compositae, & that the remainder of the MS[manuscript] is in form of notes only!
We are all well, but my deafness is alarmingly increased of late! Just at present I cannot converse) [stet]
Ever sincerely yours | Jos. D. Hooker [signature]
1. Sir George King (1840 -- 1909). Superintendent of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta in 1871 – 1898 and the first Director of the Botanical Survey of India 1891-1898. His wife Jane Anne Nicol (1845-1898) fell ill and died on the way back to England in 1898. 2. Presumably Sir Henry Collett (1836 -- 1901), a British soldier and botanist. 3. Henry Trimen (1843 -- 1896) wrote The Flora of Ceylon, which was finished by others after his death. 4. Thomas Kirk (1828 -- 1898) an English-born New Zealand botanist. 5. Sir James Hector (1834 -- 1907). Became the first Director of the New Zealand Colonial Museum and Geological Survey in 1865. Please note that work on this transcript is ongoing. Users are advised to study electronic image(s) of this document where possible.
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