Transcript
all but appointed to [a] Laborious[?] post or something like it in Madras. I do hope that he will take to studying & not merely collecting the flora of N[orth] Presidency. The huge[?] Impatiens with flower of Roylei[?], but pale pink and spotted, & very different foliage is now again in flower, self renewed[?], in my garden. It is becoming a common weed in Cottage Gardens. This agrees perfectly with a drawing of mine of a Sikkim plant that swarms at 10000 ft in the interior, in all but having subulate stipular glands, whereas my drawing has flat stipular glands, as per Wallich's*4 I. sulcata to which I referred it. -- Edgeworth’s I. gigantea
The Camp. Sunningdale
Sept[ember] 2/[18]98
My dear Prain
I had no idea when I last wrote that any more Impatiens sheets were coming. The batch just arrived are splendid specimens, & I think include one or two new S[outh] Indian species. No doubt the remainder are on their way. I am most deficient in N[orth] W[est] material, the specimens from all collectors are so very badly dried. It is one of these genera of which the material must be kept long under the eye.
I have no botanical news, -- except that King*1 pronounces himself to be perfectly well -- at least so I am told for I have not heard from him since he left for the North. He will be at Kew very soon & I shall then report ex autopsia[?]. Morris*2 has left Kew office, to my great regret for I do not see how Dyer is to replace him, nor does Dyer himself so far. The latter works himself ill. He must take a rest in Switzerland before the winter sets in. Barber*3 who has held the botanical lectureship at Coopers Hill is
all but appointed to [a] Laborious[?] post or something like it in Madras. I do hope that he will take to studying & not merely collecting the flora of N[orth] Presidency. The huge[?] Impatiens with flower of Roylei[?], but pale pink and spotted, & very different foliage is now again in flower, self renewed[?], in my garden. It is becoming a common weed in Cottage Gardens. This agrees perfectly with a drawing of mine of a Sikkim plant that swarms at 10000 ft in the interior, in all but having subulate stipular glands, whereas my drawing has flat stipular glands, as per Wallich's*4 I. sulcata to which I referred it. -- Edgeworth’s I. gigantea
which I ignorantly included under it is a totally different plant, though very closely allied.
With Lady Hooker's kind regards[.] | Ever sincerely yrs | Jos. D Hooker. [signature]
1. Presumably Sir George King (1840 --1909), Superintendent of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta in 1871 – 1898. In 1898 King was succeeded at the Calcutta Botanical Gardens by Sir David Prain.
2. Sir Daniel Morris (1844 --1933), assistant Director of Kew 1886-1898.
3. Charles Alfred Barber (1860 – 1933) was appointed Superintendent of the Botanical Station in Leeward Islands in 1892 and worked for four years before joining as a lecturer in botany at the Royal Indian Engineering College at Cooper's Hill, Surrey. In 1898 he joined the Madras Presidency (an administrative subdivision of British India) as Government Botanist.
4. Nathaniel Wolff Wallich (1786 -- 1854) was a surgeon and botanist of Danish origin who worked in India. Part of Wallich's herbarium collections is held at Kew, known as the Wallich Herbarium which is the largest separate herbarium
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