From:
Oliver Heaviside
To:
George Frederick Charles Searle
Date:
11 June 1909
Source of text:
MM/21/23, Royal Society
Summary:
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Contributor:
Royal Society
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JDH is sending to Thiselton-Dyer [WTTD] the introductory essay and proof sheet to the Chinese Impatiens of the Paris Herbarium. Says he always regretted the verbose descriptions of the Cape and Tropical African floras. JDH believes that it is more desirable for the descriptions to be similar to those of the British India flora. He says he had forgotten about his description of the Burdwan coal flora from his Himalayan Journals. JDH is amused at WTTD's idea that he is the father of Godwan land [Gondwanaland; an ancient supercontinent that according to study of plate tectonics incorporated present-day South America, Africa, Arabia, Madagascar, India, Australia, and Antarctica. WTTD may have credited JDH with the title due to his early study of plant distribution, from which he inferred that land masses change over time]. JDH can only remember discussing Indian and Mediterranean genera in Africa in his Marocco[sic] [Morroco] book [JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN MAROCCO AND THE GREAT ATLAS]. Has observed bees as main pollinating agents of Himalayan and American Balsams in his garden. [Issac Henry] Burkill has been observing the pollinating actions of insects in India but not relating to Balsams.
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JDH compliments Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer for his article on [William Botting] Hemsley. JDH finds that he is unable to satisfactorily fulfil WTTD's request to write down his memories of Robert Brown as Brown was always a very reticent friend. Hooker particularly recalls failing to persuade Brown into conversation about the latter's time on [Captain Mathew] Flinders voyage, even though JDH knew the place in Risdon, Tasmania where Brown had lived at that time. JDH does go on to recount his friendship with Brown from their first meeting in the 1830s in Glasgow. He recalls Brown taking 30 years to provide a requested specimen of Eriophorum alpinum from the bog of Forfar & gifting JDH with a copy of his work PRODROMUS FLORAE NOVAE HOLLANDIAE ET INSULAE VAN DIEMEN, asking JDH to fill some of Joseph Banks' jars with orchids for preservation in an experimental liquid, & always putting off helping JDH identify Tasmanian plants from the HMS 'Erebus' voyage. Brown was also notoriously reluctant to share herbarium specimens, for example when a set of Tierra Del Fuego plants was requested through Captain [Philip Parker] King. Brown unsuccessfully requested that [Sir John] Barrow fund the publication of the botany & zoology of the Erebus' voyage to Antarctica. It was [John] McClelland who secured the money from [Sir Robert] Peel. Brown gave no aid in the struggle to secure maintenance for RBG Kew & threatened to quarrel over Sir William Jackson Hooker's 'candidature' [for Director of RBG Kew?]. Brown was upset by the reformations to the Linnean Society & its move to Burlington House from Soho Square, where it had been holding Brown's unexamined collections. JDH asks if Lismacea has flourished. He reports he has had bad eczema on his back.
JDH writes to Otto Stapf regarding the distribution of copies of an article being reprinted. JDH would like to know which institutions receive the reprint, also who received copies of his illustrations of Impatiens from the ICONES [PLANANTARUM]. JDH wants Indo Chinese specimens from Stapf as soon as possible so he can revise his articles on Indian Balsams. JDH is also keen for Miss [Matilda] Smith to complete the drawings of the Balsams for ICONES. Letter has additional notes attached regarding the questions of distribution JDH asks. These notes are written in the hand of Otto Stapf & John Aikman. Known recipients of the Icones illustrations are listed in the notes as Fischer v. Waldheim, Matsumura & Arnoldi as well as 'all those who lent material to Sir Joseph'. The notes also asks about returning copies of Swedish & Danish periodicals which they already have in the RBG Kew library.
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JDH returns the New York Herbarium bundle of Impatiens to Otto Stapf. He says that there are 6 species, 1 of which is totally different from the ones in Elmer Merrill's collection. He has completed the diagnoses of the Phillipines species, 20 in total. It was a hard job & only 2 were previously known. The numbering has confused JDH as it is under different headings. There is a table to illustrate this. JDH still has to describe them in detail and then intercalate them with the other Malay examples. He says that all have pedicellate inflorescence & uniform stamens, apart from one. JDH says that Stapf and the Director should take some of the remaining copies of his paper from the ARCHIVES and the ICONES, should they wish. He says a lot of periodicals go with the New York Balsams. He is now to start work on the Indo-Chinese specimens and thanks Stapf for sending part of FLORA GENERALE DE INDO CHINE, and asks if he may keep it until he understands the plants a little more. He says that he will be able to manage with it written in French.