Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
JHC161
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, United Kingdom
JDH/2/22/1/1 f.48
Gray, Asa
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
6-6-1875
© Descendants of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
Asa Gray Correspondence
The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
English
Original MS
2 page letter over 1 folio
 

Partial letter comprised of a post script only, the rest of the letter is not extant in the archive. The date has been added in pencil in a hand not that of the original author, Joseph Dalton Hooker. There is no salutation but based on the letters which make up the rest of the volume the recipient is presumed to be Asa Gray. JDH asks Gray if he has any spare West African plants from the set sent to him by RBG Kew. Friedrich Welwitsch claims not to have received a set & it is possible they were sent to Gray in error, though more likely they were lost in Welwitsch's travels between London & Portugal. In turn Welwitsch has not shared his own herbarium, which is needed to complete the FLORA OF TROPICAL AFRICA.

Transcript

June 6 1875 *1
P.S. I suppose that you have none over remaining of the W[est] African plants we sent you -- a large set of these was promised to Welwitsch *2, which we now find out, for the first time, he never received, & it has struck me as just possible, that the 2d set of those things which we sent to you, may have been his set. His name stands 2nd on the list, in my handwriting, & the list is in Oliver's possession & has been all along. Wherefore the collection should have gone to him, & probably did, but was lost during his changes of residence in London & to & fro Portugal. The old fellow has not been behaving nicely of late & in fact very disagreeably, & we have lost

Page 1

June 6 1875 *1
P.S. I suppose that you have none over remaining of the W[est] African plants we sent you -- a large set of these was promised to Welwitsch *2, which we now find out, for the first time, he never received, & it has struck me as just possible, that the 2d set of those things which we sent to you, may have been his set. His name stands 2nd on the list, in my handwriting, & the list is in Oliver's possession & has been all along. Wherefore the collection should have gone to him, & probably did, but was lost during his changes of residence in London & to & fro Portugal. The old fellow has not been behaving nicely of late & in fact very disagreeably, & we have lost

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hopes of getting the collections he has so often promised to my father. I gave him a fine set of my India collections, in advance of receiving any of his -- he Fl[ora
Trop[ical] Africa must now go on exclusive of Welwitsch[']s plants! -- A most tremendous loss. We have not quarrelled, but I do not know what to do about it.
It will be almost necessary to mention in the preface the absence of Welwitsch's promised use of his Herbarium.
We are in no way in his debt, quite the contrary -- he is immensely in ours, but this affair of the Indian African plants promised him, is most unfortunate.
Ever y[ou]rs | JDH [signature]

ENDNOTES


1. Partial letter comprised of a post script only, the rest of the letter is not extant in the archive. The date has been added in pencil in a hand not that of the original author, Joseph Dalton Hooker. There is no salutation but based on the letters which make up the rest of the volume the recipient is presumed to be Asa Gray.
2. Friedrich Martin Josepf Welwitsch (1806--1872). Austrian explorer and botanist who discovered the plant Welwitschia mirabilis in the Namib Desert of Angola in 1859. The species was described and named after Welwitsch by Joseph Dalton Hooker. The species is notable as the longest lived in the plant kingdom.

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