Sends some cotton seeds for CD.
Showing 1–20 of 92 items
Sends some cotton seeds for CD.
Describes the germination and early growth of Megarrhiza about which AG has been misinformed. The tubular petioles act functionally like a root.
Ipomoea did not germinate.
Germination of Delphinium and Megarrhiza.
Germination of Megarrhiza. AG’s observations at variance with CD’s.
Seed germination.
Strange that his plants [of Megarrhiza] behaved differently from AG’s [see 12455].
Sends seeds of Megarrhiza and gives details of species.
Asks AG to confirm whether Ipomoea leptophylla "makes a great tuber as big as a mangel-wurzel".
Petioles of Cotyledons behave partly like those of Megarrhiza.
Thanks for Megarrhiza seeds and information. Has been greatly interested by Megarrhiza germination.
Samuel Butler has attacked CD over Erasmus Darwin.
Germination and root of Ipomoea.
Encloses a letter from Volney Rattan of California.
Thanks for the letter from Volney Rattan [see 12553].
Discusses protective adaptation of seedlings from frost.
Confirmation of CD’s idea: AG planted seeds Ipomœa pandurata. One seed has come up and its germination is same as of I. leptophylla.
Information about Ipomœa jalapa.
Apologises for his silence when Francis Darwin’s paper was read at the Linnean Society.
AG’s review of Movement in plants [Nation 32 (1881): 17–18].
Thanks for AG’s reviews [of Movement in plants] in the Journal and Nation [Am. J. Sci. 3d ser. 21 (1881): 245–9 and Nation 32 (1881): 17–18], especially for AG’s comment about Frank Darwin.
Leaves Kew the next day for three or four months of travel.
Peabody & Co of the United States of America have sent JDH some money, an unexpected remittance of funds deposited with them for his trip in America. JDH tells Asa Gray he is particularly grateful for it as he is trying to raise £800 to set up his son Charles Paget Hooker as a partner in a medical practice in Norfolk. The practice in Coltishall is the same one previously owned by JDH's brother in law, Thomas Evans Lombe, & by a great uncle of JDH's in the previous century. Mentions Gray's correspondence with Henslow. RBG Kew is getting 36 tons of Indian wood & other 'vegetable produce' from the India Store Department. The material is to be accommodated by the RBG Kew museums, necessitating a complete rearrangement, & Sargent would also like a share. Over the last 30 years there has been over collecting of all sorts of things in India due to bad management by the India Museum authorities. He gives the example of Cashmere shawls being left unpacked to ruin in cases. JDH is concerned about the deteriorating production quality of the BOTANICAL MAGAZINE which is not doing justice to the work of the new artist, Mr Barnard. It is published by Reeve & Co who have a bad reputation amongst the trade & craftsmen, e.g. lithographers & printers, for being miserly. Spencer Moore has been dismissed from the RBG Kew herbarium for 'gross insubordination & insolence', JDH calls him 'a lunatic'. Baker is going to work on the Agaves & Fourcroyas. [James Edward Tierney] Aitchison has a lot of news & good things from Afghanistan.
JDH asks Gray for a reference to General Alvord's first account of the Compass plant [Silphium laciniatum], alluded to by Gray in Silliman's Journal [AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND ARTS]. JDH has a drawing of the Compass plant to be published in the Jan number of CURTIS'S BOTANICAL MAGAZINE. JDH has had lunch with George Thurber. JDH has received a collection of plants, mostly Cape types, from the plateau of the African Lakes. They were collected by a Mr Thomson, companion of the unfortunate Keith Johnstone. JDH praises Alfred Russel Wallace's book on island distribution [ISLAND LIFE]. JDH writes that he is sending books to Gray, he lists prices for the following publications based on a catalogue: a work by Nees von Essenbeck & Weihe, HISTOIRE PARTICULERE ORCHIDEES RECUEILLIES AUSTRALES by Petit-Thouars, a work by Delile, PLANTES USUÉLLES DES BRÉSILIENS by Saint-Hilaire, a book about ferns of the Antilles, FLORA SARDOA by Moris & FLORA ESPAGÑOLA Ó HISTORIA DE LAS PLANTAS QUE SE CRIAN EN ESPAGÑA by Martinez. JDH suggests that Gray pay £8 for the full 28 volumes he wants. Gray is missed at Kew. The health of JDH's sister Elizabeth Evans-Lombe is improving. JDH & his wife Hyacinth Hooker are both keen to get away for a holiday. [John] Smith is incapacitated by sciatica & it is causing problems with garden duties which may prevent JDH going to Italy.
JDH thanks Gray for sending him notes on the Compass plant [Silphium laciniatum]. Discusses payment for books purchased for Gray. JDH subscribed to Leighton's Lichen Flora so that Leighton would leave his collections to RBG Kew, he is sending a copy of the new edition to Gray. Mrs Bentham has broken her femur. JDH's son Charles Paget Hooker's has been burnt out of his house, the fire killed some livestock & pets. John Smith is incapacitated by sciatica & the garden work is falling to JDH & William Thiselton-Dyer. JDH is relieved it will be his last year on The Royal Society Council, after a total of 16 years duty. He recounts some internal affairs of the Linnean Society, George Bentham resigned due to the appointment of Marie to Kippist's place on the Linnean Council. JDH is disappointed at the appointment of non-scientists as librarian & secretary to the Linnean Society. The Hooker family are well. JDH wishes he could join Gray in Spain but his duties will not allow it. He is busy with the BOTANICAL MAGAZINE. Bentham is upset with JDH's slow progress on palms [for GENERA PLANTARUM].
JDH lists some things he has found lying in the RBG Kew herbarium for Gray: newspapers, a letter from Baird about a bronze statue of Henry, a copy of C.E. Norton's CHURCH BUILDING IN THE MIDDLE AGES, & a specimen of Castanea vesca from Martindale with female inflorences imitating male ones. Charles Darwin's MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS is out but JDH thinks that Alfred Russel Wallace's ISLAND LIFE is the best natural history book of the season. [Miles Joseph] Berkeley & his daughter have been staying with the Hooker's but left early as he had an attack of gout. Berkeley has suffered with many ailments throughout his life, he is now 78. Hyacinth Hooker is organising Miss Shepard's rooms.