From:
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
To:
Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer
Date:
31 January 1909
Source of text:
JDH/2/16 f.197, The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Hooker Project
Showing 1–9 of 9 items
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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.