Letter and/or further information available at http://jdh.aetopia.net/p/jdh?q=jhc308.
Please cite as “JHC308,” in Ɛpsilon: The Joseph Dalton Hooker Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/hooker/letters/JHC308
JDH writes to his father, William Jackson Hooker, to inform him of the expedition's movements & his own activities. He has previously sent WJH some drawings & a map showing the position of Mount Erebus. They did not stop at the Chathams so JDH could not send the live New Zealand tree ferns & pines, it being too costly for Captain Ross to pay freight via Sydney. JDH has collected many new moss & lichen species, but not many new plants. He has made extensive notes & drawings of the New Zealand flora & landscape. Mentions that the New Zealand Fagus is the same Birch found in the Straits of Magellan according to Vancouver's VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY TO THE NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN. Mentions a mistake in his notes re. the number of anthers in Oreobolus. In New Zealand JDH became good friends with Dr Sinclair via whom he sends a parasitic caterpillar fungus from Rev Taylor of Waimate. It was found near Yass on the Murrumbidgee River in New Holland [Australia] by John Allan who has also provided information, which JDH transcribes. JDH also recounts what he found out about the habits of Spheria robertsii, another fungus that uses Caterpillars as a host. The letter continues under date May 3 [1842] JDH having returned from a hunt. JDH is sending letters on the ship 'Arrow' via Rio de Janeiro to his family, Bentham, Dalton & the Bootts. He also intends to write to Ward & Brown. In the Falkland Islands he has collected: Balka Brunonii, new Cardamine, some Grasses, a Halorageous Kerguelen's Land plant, a Ranunculus. Andreae are common & other Mosses are in fruit. Discusses investigation of Tussac Grass [Poa flabellata], a remarkable species of Carex Governor Moody wants information about. A Mr Wright has been botanising in the Falklands & Wilmot has been relieved at the Cape. JDH sends best wishes to Captain Beaufort & the Sabines. The expedition is in need of supplies, JDH needs spectacles & packing paper & wants to hear about RBG Kew & [George] Gardner. Sends regards from McCormick.
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