WCP2901

Letter (WCP2901.2791)

[1]1

THE CAMP.

SUNNINGDALE.

Jan[uar]y 25 1908

My dear Wallace

I have been making further enquiries at the Herbarium respecting the possibility of Bentham2 having left any further mss respecting Spruce's3 collections there than you know of -: all in vain -: & when you consider the gigantic labours that Bentham was undertaking during a great part, if not all, of the time occupied by successive arrivals from Spruce you cannot wonder that he should not attempt to study them [.] There was the Flora Australiensis (7 vols).4 the HongKong Flora,5 two I think versions of De Candolle's Prodromus6, 7,8 the British Flora,9 the Genera Plantarum with me,10 the Presidentship [2] of the Linnean Society11 with its learned annual addresses & perhaps above all the Herbarium of 30000 named species, culled from that the Herbarium left to him by Seemann12 & from his own -; all systematically arranged in Genus covers — all written up with his own hand for the & gratuitously presented to Cambridge University. Lastly why should not the study of the Sprucean collections be left for Spruce himself to deal with on his return.

I do not know if you have seen the notice of Bentham's life which I drew up for the Annals of Botany.13 I have there attempted to set forth the vast amount of work taken up & carried out by Bentham — he had enough to do in receiving & distributing gratuitously Spruce's [3]14 collection & acting as his accountant purser[?] & correspondent.

Ev[er] sinc[erel]y Y[ou]r | Jos D Hooker15

Daydon Jackson16 could possibly tell you if there is any numerical estimate of the Sprucean collection.

1
Annotated in pencil in one or more unknown hands in the top right corner "280" and "3".
2
Bentham, George (1800 -1884). English botanist. In 1854 he donated his herbarium and library to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and worked there until his death.
3
Spruce, Richard (1817 -1893). Botanist and explorer.
4
Bentham, George, with the assistance of Ferdinand von Mueller (1863 -1878). Flora Australiensis: a description of the plants of the Australian Territory. 7 vols. Lovell Reeve & Co. London.
5
Bentham, George (1861) Flora Hongkongensis: a description of the flowering plants and ferns of the island of Hongkong. Lovell Reeve & Co. London.
6
Candolle, Augustin Pyrame de- and Candolle, Alphonse de — (1824 -1874). Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis. 17 Vols. Treuttel et Würtz. Paris. George Bentham contributed to the work.
7
Candolle, Augustin Pyrame (also Pyramus) de- (1778 — 1841). Swiss botanist.
8
Candolle, Alphonse Louis Pierre Pyrame de- (1806 — 1893). French-Swiss botanist; son of Augustin Pyrame de Candolle.
9
Bentham, George (1858). Handbook of the British flora: a description of the flowering plants and ferns indigenous to, or naturalized in, the British Isles. Lovell Reeve. London.
10

Bentham, George and Hooker, Joseph Dalton. (1862 -1883). Genera plantarum ad exemplaria imprimis in Herbaris Kewensibus servata definita. A. Black.

William Pamplin. Lovell Reeve & Co. Williams & Norgate. London.

11
George Bentham was president of the Linnean Society of London from 1861 to 1874.
12
Seemann, Berthold Carl (1825 -1871). German botanist. Studied at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew. Naturalist on the HMS Herald, on the west coast of America and in the Pacific, 1847 — 1851.
13
Hooker, Joseph Dalton. (1898). Biographical memoir of George Bentham, F.R.S. Annals of Botany, vol. XII, pp. xi -xxx.
14
Annotated in pencil in an unknown hand in the top right corner "281".
15
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.
16
Jackson, Benjamin Daydon- (1846 — 1927). British botanist. Compiler of the Index Kewensis, (1893 -1895) which was rapidly accepted as a world authority on the names of flowering plants.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2901.2791)]

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Revision history

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

Please cite as “WCP2901,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 7 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2901