WCP2433

Letter (WCP2433.2323)

[1]1,2

The Camp,

Sunningdale.

Dec[embe]r. 5/[18]90

My dear Wallace,

I will see to your request at once3 — but it will take a little time to do the subspecies & varieties, which lurk amongst the entangled species of Rubus, Rosa, & other genera, in which the said terms in[?] any[?] Subsp. & Var. means one thing with one specialist, & another with another. I do not think that, taking such a genus as Hieracium4 the facts are, or ever will be, agreed upon. [2] I must select a standard authority, & if a foreign one get the opinion of a British specialist thereon. Much has been done within the last few years in Scandinavia & Belgium & in correlating British with Continental forms[.]

There has been no catalogue of N.Z. plants published since my Handbook,5 & the flora is in a hopeless mess. —

I have been urging the N.Z. Gov[ernmen]t. to employ Mr. T. Kirk,6 a thoroughly good man, in / bringing out a good flora of the Island[s] — & I shall take [3] this opportunity of your needs to urge it again — & suggest Kirks publishing a provisional list. The N.Z. flora should be pretty well doubled by this means[?].

We are all well & have survived the cold in so far as the human inhabitants are concerned, — but the frost has killed the young leaves of my (young) Magnolia grandifloras, & caused all the berries of Pyracantha to drop off. The Sikkim Rhubarbs7 do not seem to be burnt.

E[ve]r S[incerel]y Y[our]s | J D Hooker8 [signature]

1
Annotated in the top left corner in ink in ARW's[?] hand "Ack[nowledge]d."
2
Annotated "238" to the left of the annotation "10", both in pencil in an unknown hand or hands near the top right corner of the page.
3
See ARW to Hooker, WCP3895 and WCP3897.
4
Hieracium, common name hawkweed, is genus of Asteraceae related to the dandelion.
5
. Hooker, Joseph Dalton (1864). Handbook of the New Zealand Flora: A Systematic Description of the Native Plants of New Zealand and the Chatham, Kermadec's, Lord Auckland's, Campbell's, and Macquarrie's Islands. Lovell Reeve. London.
6
Kirk, Thomas (1828 -1898). British-born naturalist, in New Zealand from 1862. Plant collector and lecturer, Conservator of State Forests from 1885 -1888.
7
Sikkim rhubarb, (Rheum nobile) is a giant herbaceous plant native to the Himalaya. A description was first published by Joseph Hooker and Thomas Thomson in (1855) Illustrations of Himalayan plants : chiefly selected from drawings made for the late J.F. Cathcart, Esquire of the Bengal Civil Service / the descriptions and analyses by J.D. Hooker ; the plates executed by W.H. Fitch. Lovell Reeve. London.
8
Hooker, Joseph Dalton (1817 — 1911) British botanist and explorer. Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 1865 -1885, in succession to his father, William Jackson Hooker.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2433.2323)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Lucas, Paula [2018-08-15]

Please cite as “WCP2433,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 25 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2433