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JDH informs Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer [WTTD] that he is going to visit his children in Malvern before Asa & Jane Gray arrive for their visit. JDH updates WTTD on the current business of the gardens before he leaves. He reports that there have been a lot of Ward's cases to deal with, [John] Smith will reform the King of Hanover's grounds, Burt is improving, the Macrozamia is recovering, the Welwitschias are dying under [William] Watson's care, the Narras are also dead so the Doom palm [Hyphaene thebaica] & Balfour's things are to be cared for differently. Smith will leave soon, [George] Nicholson has returned. JDH has kept an eye on the museum & advised Jurd[?] about the pipes, they are now plastering. The fern house have been repaired. JDH has cleared a large paper cabinet some of which he will use for palms. [Charles] Flahault & Balfour are at RBG Kew, as is [Alfred] Coginaux studying Melastomads. JDH asks WTTD to start populating the palm house. He has cleared the tomato plants from the herbarium ground's walls where necessary. He askes WTTD to select some economic[?] plants for the walls of the new range house. Thanks WTTD for letter about his travels, wishes he has urged WTTD to cross the Monte Moro. The De Candolles will call later in the month to see the Grays. JDH thinks that Smith is right about the author of the RICHMOND TIMES articles being [James] Britten.

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].

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JDH has received a letter from Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer [WTTD] about his recent holiday with his wife, Hooker's daughter, Harriet. He writes that there is no need for WTTD to rush back to RBG Kew but updates him on the recent garden activities including changes to staff. Walters is stationed in the Palm House & is nervous about rearranging independently, Leighton has been 'packed off', [William] Watson has taken over the orchids, JDH does not know what to do about Burt who attends well to the grounds but not to [museum] number 2, Truelove works hard in the woods but needs time consuming supervision. [John] Smith has recovered from an attack of sciatica. The work on the museums is progressing, but the staircase in [museum] number 1 is a failure. JDH has received correspondence about appointment of a clerk for [Henry] Prestoe [in Trinidad] & recommended that Governor Irving's advice be followed & a Colony man appointed on a modest salary. JDH has brought Smith round to Beischeles[?] coming & [George] Nicholson taking on more garden duties. JDH sends his love to his old friends Brian & Susan Hodgson.

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.

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JDH sends birthday wishes to Brian Houghton Hodgson, who is his only remaining 'Indian Chum' now that Colvile is dead. JDH reports on the illnesses of [Sir Wiliam Turner] Thiselton-Dyer. JDH & his wife Hyacinth plan to go away with the Grays at the end of Feb. Gives his opinion of his father in law, [Reverend William Samuel] Symonds' novel: MALVERN CHASE, & also of [John Keat's] Endymion.

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JDH writes that he is sending Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer [WTTD] the list of herbarium visitors for the RBG Kew annual report, he was not sure whether to include [George] Bentham's name. He notes that the list shows a 'wonderful amount of botanical query & activity'. JDH is now preparing the list of additions to the herbarium, including the extensive list of [Georg Wilhelm Heinrich] Schimper & General William Munro's donated herbaria. JDH discusses the benefits of WTTD going to Court, both for him personally & for the office of Assistant Director of RBG Kew. JDH mentions that he likes the hotel Romain, where he is staying in Paris. He & his party plan to dine at Lavalier's & Capones[?] in Paris before travelling south.

JDH is sending Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer [WTTD] the prepared list of donations to the RBG Kew herbarium, for the annual Kew Report, which will need revising by WTTD & [Daniel] Oliver. They may also wish to edit Hooker's eulogy to [General William] Munro. JDH cannot work up the list of Kew's publications without references so the Report will be delayed beyond the end of Mar this year. JDH & [Asa] Gray have visited [Joseph] Decaisne who is convinced that a student of his can define the characters of the natural orders based on hairs[?], & Decaisne is classifying species of Clematis according to the bristles on the stem & testa, which Baillon[?] will undoubtedly debunk. They visited the Jardin des plantes where JDH observed about 18 immature species of Madagascar palms. Also met: [Marie Maxim] Cornu, [Philippe Édouard Léon] van Tieghem, [Pierre Étienne Simon] Duchartre & [Gaspard Adolphe] Chatin. They have dined at Lavalier's & been to St Denis. Next they go to Chambery, Turin, Genoa, Pise [Pisa], Rome & Naples.

JDH reports that he has arrived in Rome. En route the party stopped in Paris & dined with Lavalie[?] & Copen[?], the latter may leave his herbarium to RBG Kew. They then travelled through Chambery & Turin, where they saw the Champollion Collection of Egyptian Antiquities but JDH forgot to call on Giovanni Arcangeli who is a professor there. JDH admired the view of the Alps towards Monte Viso from an 'Alpine club' house at Turin. After Turin they went to Genoa & tried unsuccessfully to call on the Marquis Giacomo Doria. They also saw the Doria Natural History Museum with a splendid collection of animals from the Malay Islands & called on Federico Delpino. JDH revisited the palaces with the Van Dyke paintings he saw in 1874. He calls the Genoa botanic garden 'small & miserable'. From Genoa they took the train to Pisa where they met up with Betsy White as was. JDH describes the Duomo they visited in Pisa. He also describes the scenery en route from Pisa to Rome. They will next go to Castellammare & stay at the Hotel Quisisana in Naples before returning to Rome. They have briefly seen Miss May Symonds & her brother. JDH notes how sparsely populated, though cultivated, the plains of Italy are. He has seen a few wild flowers: anemones & violets. Curiously the bark of almost all the trees south of the Alps is very white: Planes, Poplars, Mulberries & Elms.

JDH writes to Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer from Castellammare, where he & Lady Hooker have just arrived after spending some time in Rome & Naples. At Naples he visited [Anton] Dohrn's aquarium. He describes some animals of particular interest he saw there: Crinoids, Sepia [cuttlefish], Octopus & Loligo [squid]. He also mentions seeing fish, Ascidia, Corals, Madrepores, Melobesias, Diptera, Beroe, Crustacea, Meduseus & Ulva. In the Naples museum JDH admired the statuary especially a head of Homer & a Venus after Milo. He found the collection of paintings inferior to those at the Vatican & preferred the murals & artefacts from Pompeii, especially: a pane of glass, a surgeon's instrument, a glass plate & a blue glass flagon. JDH has visited Pompeii & tried to understand exactly how it was preserved by the volcanic eruption, he is puzzled why there are not more charcoal remains of the wooden upper stories of buildings & speculates that the town was only partially buried & the exposed material later carried away. Castellammare is where Pliny the elder died during the eruption. JDH is keen to see Herculaneum & understand how its artefacts were not all destroyed by the lava. He also wanted to see Professor Luigi Palmieri at the observatory on Vesuvius but Palmieri is in Rome. JDH intends to ascend Vesuvius the next day. JDH visited the Naples botanical garden but did not see Vincenzo de Cesati or Giuseppe Antonio Pasquale. JDH calls the garden 'wretched' but he did learn something there about Mediterranean Pini. JDH will next go to Amalfi, Salerno & Paestum but not to Capri or Monte St Angelo because of the poor weather. Odoardo Beccari was in Rome appealing against the removal of a herbarium in Florence. JDH comments on the news of Mrs Meade's death & on the poor botanical knowledge of Sir John Lubbock. JDH has asked [John] Smith to give Dyer a list of all RBG Kew garden staff. JDH comments briefly on vegetation in the area, including sour oranges.

JDH informs Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer that he has asked [John] Smith to send William Govett Romaine some green house things, Romaine was helpful to RBG Kew as Secretary of the Admiralty. JDH mentions some correspondence with Sir Charles Wyville Thomson. Since last writing JDH & his wife [Hyacinth Hooker] have been to Amalfi, Sorrento, Paestum & up Vesuvius & have visited Anton Dohrn's aquarium & museum in Naples. Next they will go to Rome & Florence. JDH has also written to Reverend William Samuel Symonds & his son 'Willy' [William Henslow Hooker]. Letters can be addressed to JDH as follows: Maquai, Hooker &c Care of Bankers.

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JDH writes to Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer from Florence, about visiting [Anton] Dohrn's laboratory at Naples. He was interested in their method of rearing fish, molluscs & ascidians & impressed by the library. Dohrn gets little investment from England but is more concerned by lack of interest from the United States of America. The lab has a room for selling microscopic preparations & a popular aquarium. Lady [Hyacinth] Hooker has visited Mrs Dohrn. JDH got tired of sightseeing in Rome, he admires the Christian builders for turning material from temples into churches but thinks the original buildings were probably more impressive. He marvels at how lifelike he found bronze sculptures compared to those of marble. But the dying gladiator in marble at the Vatican is the most impressive sculpture JDH has ever seen. At the Vatican he also admired Raphael's 'Transfiguration' but in general was not impressed with the paintings & frescos of Rome. Though some of the old Roman paintings are fine, he suspects there were greater ancient Greek masterpieces in paint that have not survived. He saw some Etruscan artefacts at Cortona including painting of a muse quite unlike the Etruscan frescoes found at Orvieto, which closely resemble those of Pompeii. JDH describes his impressions of St Peter's Basilica, especially the mosaic inside the dome, which he compares to the dome of the Duomo & St Paul's in London. JDH was already familiar with the ancient arches & colosseum from the renderings of Piranesi & Panini, so they had less impact. Mentions visiting Tivoli & the crater lake at Albano. Writes of a Trappist monastery he visited in the Campania, where Eucalyptus is credited with curing fever & the land is cultivated by monks & convicts. He mentions various works being done at RBG Kew including dragging the lake, & the care of Araucaria rulei. JDH comments on the need for reform in the Linnean Society, he does not want to be the chair & Lubbock will do no harm in that role.

JDH sympathises with Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer's suffering with ague. JDH has seen the sights in Venice & is leaving for Milan & then Zurich via the Lakes & St Gotthard pass. After visiting [Oswald?] Heer JDH will go to Paris & stay at the Hotel St Romains, Rue St Roch. JDH is tired of looking at churches & Madonas but was more impressed even than on previous visits by the grandeur of Venetian art. Titian's 'Assumption' & 'Presentation' are the finest paintings JDH has ever seen. JDH & his party also visited Florence & Sienna with the Miss Horners & Annie Parry & met the Miss Cobdens, also Bologna & Ravenna. The famous pine forest, Pinus pinea, had been killed by the cold of 1879 to 1880 & the devastation reminded JDH of the great Eucalyptus forest of the subalpine plateaus in Tasmania, killed off in 1835. JDH reports that the weather has been fair but cold. The Grays [Asa & Jane] have been enjoying the trip, commetns particularly on Jane Gray's enthusiasm for churches and art. Her brother [General Charles C. Loring] is keeper of the Boston Art Museum. JDH gives instructions for how WTTD can get I touch if he needs JDH.