JDH informs his father, William Jackson Hooker, that since last writing to the family through Captain [Francis] Beaufort he has been busy collecting in the Bay of Islands. His collection is rich in mosses & phaenogams, including some not in [Allan] Cunningham's flora. JDH has been on excursions with [William] Colenso, who is otherwise busy with printing & other missionary business. JDH has a mixed opinion of missionaries but likes Colenso. Colenso has given JDH some curiosities of New Zealand, incl. minerals & a paper nautilus. The HMS 'Erebus' will travel straight to the ice without stopping at Chatham Island. The last letters JDH received from England were on 1 Feb. JDH's letter will go via Sydney on the HMS 'Favourite' & he hopes for return letters when he is in the Falkland Islands. [Joseph] Dayman wrote to JDH from Van Diemen's Land [Tasmania] with news that the latest communication with [Joseph Henry] Kay' contained no news of the Hooker family. Lady [Jane] Franklin has written to inform Captain [James Clark] Ross that part of his journal & one of JDH's collections of plants were lost en route from Hobartown [Hobart], he hopes it is not the collection including illustrated notes from the Auckland or Cape [Verde] Islands, he suspects it is the Kerguelen Island plants & luckily he has duplicates of most, unlike Sir Stamford Raffles, [Robert] Brown or WJH who did not. JDH wonders how WJH's situation has changed since being appointed as Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew & what has become of his friend [G. A. Arnott Walker-] Arnott. JDH finds botanizing in New Zealand lonely & hopes his work is worth it. Mentions some distinctive species of New Zealand moss: a Polytrichum, a Hookeria that resembles H. cristata, a Phascum, a Splachnum, a Trematodon & a foliaceous species with similarities to Jungermannia.