JDH sends this letter accompanying some specimens [not present] for his father, William Jackson Hooker. He discusses his monograph of Van Diemen's Land [Tasmania] plants, it is a revision of WJH's papers in the BOTANICAL JOURNAL & CURTIS'S BOTANICAL MAGAZINE[?] & needs the addition of Malvaceous plants from ICONES PLANTARUM & Brown's genus Stenopetalum from De Candolle. It is to be printed in the ANNALS & Mr Taylor will send copies for Sir John Franklin, Captain [James Clark] Ross etc. JDH expects the expedition to leave VDL for the ice in Oct 1840. Discusses the need to revise his description for the ICONES PLANTARUM. JDH's collection may be extensive enough to warrant adding new VDL genera to future volumes of the FLORA BOREALI AMERICANA. JDH is now considered the naturalist to the expedition though his nominal rank is as a medical officer [assistant surgeon].
The Joseph Dalton Hooker Collection
The Joseph Dalton Hooker Correspondence Project at Kew is making available online the personal and scientific correspondence of the botanist and explorer Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911), Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens’ Kew from 1865-1885. The project was conceived by staff of The University of Sussex and Kew's Library, Art and Archive department and began as a partnership between Kew and the University of Sussex's Centre for World Environmental History. It has been made possible by support from the Stevenson Family Charitable Trust. Letter summaries can be searched through Ɛpsilon, with links to images and transcriptions at the project site at Kew (https://www.kew.org/explore-our-collections/correspondence-collections/joseph-hooker-collections).