From William Hooker   9 April 1854

Royal Gardens,

Kew. Apr. 9. 1854.

My dear Sir

I have two most interesting letters to thank you for, one bearing date "Victoria Range, — the 21 Novr 1853"¹:— the other "Torumbarrey, 5 Jan. 1854"²:— The latter too giving me the highly welcome intelligence that you are en route for the "Alps," — the very locality that I lately suggested to your new Governor, Sir Chas Hotham as certain to yield a most interesting Flora & one that must be very instructive for botanical Geography. He has promised to do all in his power to promote the cause of Botany & to place you & me in frequent communication.³

No less gratified have I been with your "first botanical Report"⁴ which the Duke of Newcastle sent to me only a few days ago, & already you will see that the principal part of it is transferred to the pages of my Journal.⁵ I could not help writing to the Duke expressly to tell him how pleased I was that you had been selected for such an appointment.⁶

If I was pleased with your Report, — I cannot say that I gave to our Secretary for the Colonies an equally flattering account of Mr Swainson's Report on the Gum-Trees!!!⁷ In my life I think I never read such a series of trash & nonsense.

There is a man who left this country with the character of a first rate Naturalist (tho' with many eccentricities) & of a very first rate Natural History Artist: & he goes to Australia & takes up the subject of Botany of which he is as ignorant as a Goose. I only wait for a spare page in my Journal to show that he really is so.⁸ Tho' that I would not have troubled myself to do, if I did not wish to draw a contrast between the two Reports.⁹ It was stated in a Sydney Paper, that Swainson received £800 for writing all that nonsense!! He makes I think some 300 species of Eucalyptus of one small district. I only hope that his drawings are valuable & fairly in possession of your Garden.

I am now writing to Dr Harvey at Adelaide. You will I am sure be mutually pleased with each other. His talent & acquirements are first rate & he is as humble & modest as he is clever. I have just heard from him from King George's Sound.¹⁰ He had intended going on by land to Swan River, but he dreaded the heat & preferred searching for Algae in South Australia.¹¹ I am now publishing 2 most elegant new Algae he discovered in Ceylon:— new as to Genus as well as species.¹²

No doubt you will find the "Alps" to contain plants analogous to those of Van Diemen's Land & I do hope you will collect & send to us seeds as well as specimens. Such plants would flourish in the open air with us. I do trust your late Governor Mr La Trobe is bringing home seeds & plants with him. Our last steamer took out the New Governor.

Dr Hooker is very busy commencing on the last of his 3 works the results of his Antarctic Voye,¹³ the Flora Tasmanicae:¹⁴ & he contemplates a visit to Mr Sonder in Hamburgh, if he can possibly spare the time. I have just received a most rich set of Cryptogamae from a Mr Oldfield in Van Diemen's Land. He is not neglectful of other plants but has a most extraordinary affection for the Acotyledons: & we are very thankful for any one who will be at the pains to collect them: so I give him all the encouragement I can, & there are several charming things among them. Indeed our Herbarium is daily increasing in extent & value. Last year was added to our Collection all the late Dr Bromfield's Herbarium & library, bequeathed to us: and now only last week Mr Bentham's whole Collection (the largest private Herbarium in the world, probably, next to my own) of plants, & his entire botanical Library is given to us & now safely deposited here. It is fortunate that the Queen has graciously given me the use of the whole of the King of Hanover's House & 18 rooms are now completely filled with the Herbarium alone! We have 2 assistants constantly employed to keep these in order, & every day there are never less than 5 Botanists constantly working there. And yet extensive as this Hortus siccus is, you will have it in your power to add materially to it.

Truly this the era of discovery in Australia. I have just had the Report of the Navigation of the Murray sent to me.¹⁵ Mr Roe has penetrated a little into the South West interior.¹⁶ I have just received Drummond's very fine plants collected 300 miles north of Swan River:¹⁷ & now the Duke of Newcastle is contemplating an expedition into the North-west interior, which is to be I hope under the command of Captn Sturt, & which my friend Dr Thos. Thomson, a first rate Botanist, is to accompany in that capacity.¹⁸ A capital artist also goes with it, Mr Baines.

I sent some seeds through the Colonial Office very lately, of the famous Argan¹⁹ of Marocco to Melbourne, but whether I sent them direct to you or to Mr Latrobe I cannot exactly remember. In either case they will be sent to your Botanic Garden I do not doubt, & I enclose for you a little account of the same.²⁰ I think your climate would be suited. The fruits were procured at great expense & with great difficult & [are in] the freshest state possible.²¹

You will I am sure kindly allow me to publish extracts from your letters, illustrative of the Botany of Victoria. Such information cannot be made too public.

Nothing in the shape of plants or seeds or specimens have ever reached me yet from Victoria, nor some Mss. to which you allude. Probably the late Governor will bring them home with him.

If Mr Swainson procured the quantity of seeds of Eucalypti &c he professes to have done, some of them should have been sent to Kew.

Yours my dear Sir,

very truly & faithfully

W. J. Hooker.

Eucalyptus