JDH informs Asa Gray that he has just visited his friend from Nepal, Brian Houghton Hodgson & also his sister in law Mrs Barnard. William Turner Thiselton-Dyer has been organising books & manuscripts at RBG Kew. JDH thanks Gray for his criticisms on GENERA PLANTARUM, specifically mentioning his own & [George] Bentham's work on Vaccinieae & Orabancheae incl Hypopithys, various Andromeda species, oxycoccos & whether Gaylussacia is a natural genus. Asks for Gray to clarify his stance on whether Orobanche should be made a separate order or part of Ericaceae. JDH has been assured by Bureau & Decaisne that there is no Pleuricospora in Borgeau's Mexican collection. Agrees that Gray, not Lindley, should have been acknowledged under Diapensiaceae, though it is a weak order that JDH considered putting into Ericaceae. JDH does not agree with Gray's desire to be acknowledged under Galax. JDH, Thiselton-Dyer, Oliver & Baker were all unaware of Gray's conspectus of Mertensia & JDH complains that he cannot be expected to keep up with all of Gray's extensive work. Thanks Gray for seeds of Arctostaphylos bicolor. Hopes Jackson & plant case have arrived. Harriet [Hooker later Thiselton-Dyer, Hooker's daughter] & co will return from Boulogne the following week. Harriet is generally a good housekeeper but as she is pretty she is asked out a lot & is 'too lazy to take the lead as head of the house' JDH is kept very busy with family matters & is glad to have the help of Mrs Turner & a cousin who will recommence their stay with the Hooker's once returned from Boulogne.

JDH informs Asa Gray that he is writing to Waldo Ross to thank him for a barrel of apples. JDH has received Gray's letter of 6 Dec [1875] & thanks him for a second copy of AESTIVATION AND TERMINOLOGY. JDH agrees with Gray regarding the importance of keeping [herbarium] material out of bad hands. He praises Decaisne's Pirus essay & Gray's notes in it, but notes that [Henri Ernest] Baillon has inserted a mistake into Decaisne's work; regarding the position of ovules. JDH dismisses Baillon's HISTOIRE [DES PLANTES] & calls his work on Phytolacceae a poor rehash of a bad work by Moquin-Tandon. JDH is puzzled what to do with Stegnosperma. He & George Bentham[GB] have decided to keep up Paronychieae [in GENERA PLANTARUM] & put Limeum & Gisekia [Gisechia] into Mollugineae. JDH has done Nyotaginea & had a dreadful task with Mirabilis Oxybaphus & co. But with GB's agreement kept Mirabilis for the big flowers & Oxybaphus for the small as a poor compromise. He offers to send Gray the glossary. He thinks Gray's varieties of O. cervantesii are both good distinct species. JDH is now working on Paronychieae & GB on Labiatae. Acanthaceae is being printed, to be followed by Verbenaceae. In response to Gray's entreaty JDH states he cannot visit him in the USA as he has 6 children to deal with. Hardy will go to New York in July & JDH would like to visit Gray at that time. Parish lives up to expectations. Diggs has given another grant to print the CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERS for 1863-73. GB has recovered from a cold. Munro has settled near Taunton. [Thomas] Thomson has been very ill, he lives near Maidstone. [Charles Robert] Darwin is well, for him.

JDH has invited Judge Hastings & family to lunch. JDH currently working on GENERA PLANTARUM & proofs of FLORA OF BRITISH INDIA, with the sub-par help of Baker. JDH sending Asa Gray a copy of his [SCIENCE] PRIMER[: BOTANY] for critique. Looks forward to seeing the synoptic sample of Gray's FLORA BOREALIS AMERICANA. JDH would like to visit Gray but cannot leave his family with nobody to care for them. Thinks he must marry again. His daughter, Harriet [Anne Hooker] is ill & has been staying with the Munros near Taunton & her aunt, JDH's sister, in Torquay. Mentions Tyndall's marriage: ceremony performed by Dean Stanley, hopes the new Mrs Tyndall will be a good influence. Lady Augusta died the day after the wedding & the flowers JDH sent for the wedding became wreaths for a coffin. [Sir E. Ray] Lankester has been voted into the Linnean Society despite Carruther's opposition. Comments on George Allman as president of the Linnean Society & his own wish to resign the Vice President-ship. Mentions sending ROYAL SOCIETY TRANSACTIONS & clavis of Nyctago[?] to Gray. Reports on the progress of getting the new Herbarium building approved & constructed. It transpires the site & present herbarium house belong to RBG Kew having been sold by King George IV, meaning subsequent monarchs William IV & Queen Victoria never actually owned Hanover House. The existing building will become a library, as originally intended by Joseph Banks, & an extension built for the herbarium. JDH is called away to work on the BOTANICAL MAGAZINE.

JDH & his wife [Hyacinth Hooker] have just returned from their honeymoon to North Wales where they climbed Cadair Idris & Snowdon. They also went to the Botanical Association at Glasgow where they & George Bentham stayed with JDH's niece Mrs Campbell. The married tour continued around Scotland to the Clyde, some of JDH's 'old haunts' on Loch Lomond & Inveray [Inveraray], Loch Awe via Crinan, Oban via Ben Cruachan, Skye, Gari Loch [Gairloch], Loch Maree, Dingwall, Inverness, Forres, Rothiemurchus, Stirling, to stay with the McGilvrays at Bridge of Allan & with Brian Houghton Hodgson in Gloucestershire & another visit in Worcestershire. Hyacinth Hooker proved an excellent walker & climber, enduring a long walk through the bogs in Skye, a 25 mile walk to a church in the Cuchillins [Cuillin], & a trek to 2000 feet over Loch Coruisk. He wonders whether Mrs [Jane Loring] Gray is an equally robust walker. JDH has found that he is very compatible with his new wife, she has a genuine interest in plants & will make an excellent step mother. Discusses the correct author attributions for Tripetalia & Tuckermannia. Olvey[?] has not turned up. Thanks Gray for Abies fraseri cones & asks what soil they should be grown in. JDH will begin working on his Anniversary Address for the Royal Society. Thanks Gray for a cheque for Gay's plants.

JDH thanks Asa Gray for a letter of 16 Oct pointing out a mistake in a plant description, the plant as identified incorrectly by Thompson & [John Gilbert] Baker & JDH missed the mistake in the absence of [Daniel] Oliver. JDH asks Gray to explain why he has kept D. elegans & D. puchella [pulchella?] separate as it is not clear from Gray's BOTANY OF CALIFORNIA. Baker & Oliver are certain Gray is wrong about an Iris. Baker is progressing fast with the Mauritian flora. Bennett has bequeathed RBG Kew a share of the Brownian Australia Herbarium. George Bentham is working on Cyperaceae & waiting for Muller to send Australian specimens. Munro is working on Gramineae for Alphonse De Candolle. JDH is busy with Royal Society affairs & preparing his Royal Society Presidential Anniversary Address. Discusses a dispute between the British Museum & Sir Wyville Thomson over distribution & publication of the Challenger expedition collections. The expedition was arranged by the Royal Society so they will adjudicate the dispute on behalf of the government. JDH is strongly against the collections going to the British Museum but is in a difficult position regarding the dispute as he is a Trustee of the British Museum as well as President of the Royal Society & Director of RBG Kew. JDH states that Richard Owen [Superintendant of the natural history department of the British Museum] is unpopular. JDH incredulously cites a claim Owen made to the Treasury that the Keepers of Botany at the British Museum, from Robert Brown to William Carruthers, were responsible for describing the plants collected on Government expeditions dating from the voyages of James Cooke & Matthew Flinders to Berthold Carl Seemann. JDH is especially busy as Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer is on holiday in Italy.

JDH is busy working on a new edition of his STUDENT'S FLORA OF THE BRITISH ISLES he compares the delineation of species in the flora to that in Asa Gray's MANUAL OF THE BOTANY OF THE NORTHERN UNITED STATES. JDH consults Gray on whether Gymnosperms should be a subclass of Dicotyledons or a group equal to all other Phaenogams? Joseph Decaisne, Gray & JDH favour the former position, Daniel Oliver & William Thiselton-Dyer the latter. Gnetum, esp. Formation of the embryo, will be key in determining the correct arrangement. JDH has sent the corrected SCIENCE PRIMER: BOTANY to the press, he would find such works easier to write if he also lectured. Life with his new wife Hyacinth Hooker is good & his future looks bright though sad times behind him make him doubt its security. JDH's sister Mrs Elizabeth Evans-Lombe, née Hooker is suffering less from neuralgia & melancholy. George Bentham is well. Oliver is working on the African flora, & Moore[?] is working on grasses. Asks if Charles Sprague Sargent can send American Southern Bamboo.

JDH informs Asa Gray that he has resigned as President of the Royal Society. JDH believes [William] Spottiswoode, mathematician & engineer, will be his successor. He explains why he is glad that it will not be [George] Stokes. He hopes that John Evans will be elected treasurer. George Engelmann has written to JDH about his Abies & about Juniperus. JDH disagree with Engelmann that the Sierra Nevada juniper is the same as Juniperus occidentalis of Colorado, he explains in detail the different characteristics & habit of each species including a small sketch of the roots. JDH congratulates Gray on his hypothesis regarding distribution of North American Flora, which ties in well with a lecture JDH is giving on the subject at the Royal Institution. His theme will be meridional distribution & he will compare the effect of the Alps with the American mountains. JDH credits the Mediterranean with less importance as a barrier to another Pliocene than Gray does. JDH has been comparing the flora of the Eastern United States with that of California & is amazed at the differences e.g. in order Caryophyllea. In his lecture JDH will cover Gray's researches on the Japan Flora, his own on Arctic flora, their shared travels in America & subsequent private work. JDH is surprised by the number of Asian types in the flora of West America not present in East America & wonders if they are the result of two Asiatic migrations in different periods. JDH asks Gray's opinion of the last volume of THE LIFE OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE CONSORT & expresses his own surprise at its revelations regarding unconstitutional political manoeuvring by Prince Albert & Queen Victoria, especially in relation to the Crimean War. JDH comments on the reversal in popularity of Gladstone & Disraeli, JDH suspects Gladstone's charges about the ministry intending to help the Turks has moved opinion. JDH is not a Tory but thinks the Liberals have made a mess of things.

JDH writes that he & his wife, Hyacinth, are in Ireland. Killarney weather is terrible. JDH comments on absence from Dublin of [William Henry] Harvey & [Edward] Wright but notes David Moore is keeping the botanic garden well. Has recently been in touch with: [Daniel] Hanbury, Charles Dwight Marsh, Robert Lambourne & George Davidson of the Pacific Coast Survey. Discusses his work on the genus Amaranth for the GENERA PLANTARUM, he has referred to Martius' work. JDH gives news of his family: his sister Maria [McGilvray] & husband are unwell, 1 of their children is a tea planter in India. Hooker's son Charles Paget Hooker has failed his medical exams. Brian Harvey Hodgson Hooker has gone to Barmen to study German & will then go to School of Mines. John Smith [Curator of Kew] has been seriously unwell, William Thiselton-Dyer has been left in charge of RBG Kew. Mentions: a letter to Wesley; the opinion of [Harvey Wilson] Harkness & [John] Muir on Sequoia trunks; & the Miocene flora of Iceland. Discusses geology, specifically his & Gray's differing opinions on glacial formation of granite valleys in the USA & contemporary formation of land masses. Discusses biogeography: Gray's thinking on commonalities in the Greenland & North American Flora. Disputes the correct classification of: Draba streptocarpa, Arenaria uliginosa & A. rossii. Discusses the correct name of the Cypress Point [California] Cupressus; is it a form of common American tree C. macrocarpa? C. goveniana is different & C. macnabiana still uncertain. Mentions C. lambertiana seed collected by Ruprecht possibly on Krusenstern's expedition. Disagrees with Gray, re. climate & the relative importance of the equator & poles. Does not understand why Gray has called Olive a deciduous tree, or his comments on drought. Mentions specimens of a Texas Amaranth. Discusses Gray's book INTRODUCTION TO MORPHOLOGY & CLASSIFICATION, [Julius von] Sachs history of botany & politician Sir Trevor Lawrence's motion about opening Kew.

JDH writes that he encloses: a cheque for Asa Gray, & Mr Brown's account of the sale of Gray's books etc [enclosures not present]. Asks about 'Mr Millar's check'. JDH's niece Willielma Campbell died after giving birth to still born child. JDH attended the funeral in Glasgow, his wife [Hyacinth Hooker] accompanied him to comfort Isabella Hooker, Willielma's mother. JDH's sister Bessy [Elizabeth Evans-Lombe nee Hooker] is staying with him at Kew on her way to visit their Aunt Brightwen in Norfolk. JDH wishes he had been with Gray in the Alleghenies. JDH asks Gray if he should send Hayden the ATHENAEUM &c for the Survey library. JDH asks what has become of his & Gray's report. George Bentham is visiting Munro. JDH & Bentham are printing the next volume of GENERA PLANTARUM, incl. Chenopodiaceae. JDH criticises Muller's article NATIVE PLANTS OF VICTORIA, particularly his intercalation of monosplanes with Choripetaleae, description of Nyctagineae & figure of Boerhavia. Mentions George Henslow's 'weeds'. Encourages Gray to come to England. JDH would like to make another trip to America but does not want to abandon Bentham as they are working on monocots for GENERA PLANTARUM. JDH praises Bentham's skill & productivity. JDH recommends that Gray work on North American Flora, new edition of his text book & Hayden's report. He suggests Gray read Bales' Royal Geographical Society lecture on alpine floras in GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. Charles Darwin is in the Lake District. Mentions Engelmann's work on differentiating Pinus species. JDH is impatient for the continuation of Watson's bibliography to simplify referencing American botany. Comments on Gray building a library & herbarium [at Harvard] & on narrow minded attitudes towards Sargent. Mentions Clarke. JDH's book TOUR IN MAROCCO [Morocco] is making a loss. Charles Paget Hooker is trying again to pass at the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons, Edinburgh. The glass houses at RBG Kew have been damaged by a hail storm.

JDH clarifies that he is not the source of a request for Asa Gray to review his publication GENERA PLANTARUM. Especially as he is under the impression Gray would have nothing complimentary to say about his work on the order Rubiaceae, despite the effort JDH has put into & his belief that he has corrected more mistakes than he has made. He notes that [Sir William Turner] Thiselton-Dyer corrected the work before it went to press. JDH has just returned from a tour of the left bank of the Rhine, Eifel country [volcanic region of Germany], with his wife [Frances Hooker nee Henslow], [John] Lubbock & the Grant-Duffs. They also saw Luxembourg & Treves [Trier]. JDH has asked the publisher, Longman, to send Gray a copy of Decaisne & Le Maout [A GENERAL SYSTEM OF BOTANY DESCRIPTIVE AND ANALYTICAL]. JDH is currently working on the FLORA OF BRITISH INDIA with Thiselton-Dyer but they are hampered by shortcomings in [Carl Friedrich Philipp von] Martius' work & the illness of [Michael Packenham] Edgeworth & [Thomas] Thomson. [George] Bentham is currently working on Mimosaceae for Martius' work. A young man who works for Micheli, of Geneva, is at RBG Kew working on Onograceae & Rubiaceae. Bibb has sent RBG Kew a collection of Illinois plants. JDH hopes to go on holiday to the Auvergne with [Thomas Henry] Huxley. JDH also has much to do reforming business procedures at the Royal Society & arranging the Society's move to new apartments.

JDH informs Asa Gray that he has returned from a trip to the Auvergne, Cantal, Mont Dore & Ardeche country taken with [Thomas Henry] Huxley, who is now at Baden Baden, Switzerland. Mentions professor Cresson[?] is working under Sir W. Thomson & has sent JDH Aster seeds. [Daniel] Oliver is in Jersey. [George] Bentham is working on Mimosaceae for FLORA BRAZILIENSIS. JDH shook off a minor attack of bronchitis whilst on tour in the Eifel with [John] Lubbock & [Mountstuart Elphinstone] Grant-Duff. Thanks Gray for his congratulations on JDH gaining the Presidency of the Royal Society though admits he feels 'oppressed' with the prospects. Mentions Gray getting [William Starling] Sullivant's collection of mosses, RBG Kew has received Hunt's mosses as a gift. JDH expresses low opinion of [William] Carruthers & his conduct in answer to a bill in chancery. Reports on the current whereabouts of his family: Frances, Brian & Reginald at Eastbourne, William with JDH at Kew & Harriet in Gloucestershire. JDH describes & highly compliments a botany course designed by Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer to be run at the school in South Kensington. Thanks Gray for putting a notice of [his wife France Hooker's English translation of] Decaisne & Le Maout's work [TRAITÉ GÉNÉRAL DE BOTANIQUE DESCRIPTIVE ET ANALYTIQUE] in Silliman's Journal [AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE]. JDH cannot recall where he got notice of Sarracenia rubra, alias purpurea. [John Gilbert] Baker has sent all the notes of [Auguste Boniface] Ghiesbreght. JDH has sent Gray Ferns by 'young Ross'. JDH intends to make a cold fernery & asks Gray for roots. Comments on the release of further 'Survey Botanical Reports' & Sullivant's supplements. Notes that the South Kensington Museum is to be put under the British Museum trustees, a symptom of Gladstone's 'mad' government, under which he expects RBG Kew has had 'a lucky escape'.

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