From Joseph Hooker¹    12 June 1896

June 12 /96.

The Camp.

Sunningdale.

My dear Baron

I have just opened & read yours of 7th ult.² & am much gratified by your notice of the Gramineae of Fl. Bot. Ind. I wish that I could look at it with even equaminity, much more with satisfaction, but the further I go on the more convinced I feel that the work is only an introduction to the study of Indian Grasses, & that future observations may much modify my conclusions. Then too there are a plentiful crop of blunders, & omissions which turn up in the most unexpected places. —

Thus in the Clavis of genera several genera are absent, — of obscure things that lurked in out of the way corners of the Herbarium, or of plants which on a 3d revision demanded generic rank. — 66 Phippsia must go into Catabrosa with Colpodium (& Dupontia) & go next to Poa. Phragmites Madagascariensis must form a new genus, Neyraudia.

The characters of 104, 105, 106 have got mixed by the printer (I suppose.) I have just sent Poa, Festuca & Bromus to press — I gave them all to Stapf to discriminate & diagnose, as he knows European & Oriental Grasses much better than I do. — He has also done Eragrostis, a very difficult task. Then as the Bambuseae are all worked up by Gamble, & it would be folly to interfere with his work, I have only to extract his matter & put it in the form of the other genera & sp. of Brit. India & give him the credit of it all.

Banks' Journal is nearly free of the Press; a copy shall of course go to you at once.³ It cost more labor to conclude properly than I anticipated & I have been powerfully aided by my 4th son Reginald, who is an officer in the Board of Agriculture & of a literary & mathematical turn. I hope the work will take in Australia; and give the world a higher idea of Banks than it had. There should be a monument to him in Australia.⁴

The idea of giving you a musical salutation on your birthday (& mine!) charms me. I did not know that we were co-natal as to day & month or I would have thought especially of you; & all the more as I had a Musical Jubilee too! my youngest boy Richard, atet⁵ 12, having composed a very pretty piece for me — he is almost a musical genius & delightful on the Violin, full of feeling & expression.

At last Mrs Brian has gone [out] to her husband with the children: he has just built a house for them at Coolgardie Kanowna, where he has charge of a Mine with £700 & liberty to look after others — I [now] think of all your kindness to his poor wife in her distress with most grateful feelings.

Ever my dear Baron

most sincerely yr

Jos D Hooker

Bambuseae

Bromus

Catabrosa

Colpodium

Dupontia

Eragrostis

Festuca

Neyraudia

Phippsia

Phragmites Madagascariensis

Poa