Makers of British Botany; a collection of biographies by living botanists
History
Makers of British Botany; a collection of biographies by living botanists
Botanists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Botany -- Great Britain -- History
We have seen how on the Antarctic voyage Hooker had the opportunity
of collecting on all the great circumpolar areas of the Southern
Hemisphere. His _Antarctic Flora_ was based on the collections
and observations then made. It was published in six large quarto
volumes. The first related to the Lord Auckland and Campbell Islands
(1843-1845); the second to Fuegia and the Falkland Islands (1845-1847);
the third and fourth to New Zealand (1851-1853); and the fifth and
sixth to Tasmania (1853-1860). They describe about 3000 species,
while on 530 plates 1095 species are depicted, usually with detailed
analytical drawings. But these volumes did not merely contain reports
of explorations, or descriptions of the many new species collected.
There is much more than this in them. All the known facts that could
be gathered were incorporated, so that they became systematically
elaborated and complete Floras of the several countries. Moreover,
in the last of them, the _Flora Tasmaniae_, there is an Introductory
Essay, which in itself would have made Hooker famous. We shall return
to this later. Meanwhile we recognise that the publication of the
_Botanical Results of Ross's Voyage_ established Hooker's reputation as
a Traveller and Botanist of the first rank.
What he did for the Antarctic in his youth he continued in mature life
for British India. While the publication of the _Antarctic Flora_ was
still in progress, he made his Indian journeys. The vast collections
amassed by himself and Dr Thomson were consigned by agreement with
Government to Kew. Thither had also been brought in 1858 "seven
waggon-loads of collections from the cellars of the India House in
Leadenhall Street, where they had been accumulating for many years."
They included the herbaria of Falconer and Griffith. Such materials,
with other large additions made from time to time, flowed into the
already rich Herbarium at Kew. This was the material upon which Sir
Joseph Hooker was to base his _Magnum Opus_, the _Flora of British
India_.
Already in 1855 Sir Joseph, with his Glasgow college friend, Thomas
Thomson, had essayed to prepare a "Flora Indica." It never advanced
beyond its first volume. But if it had been completed on the scale
set by that volume, it would have reached nearly 12,000 pages! After
a pause of over fifteen years Hooker made a fresh start, aided now by
a staff of collaborators, and the _Flora of British India_ was the
result. It was conceived, he says with regret, upon a restricted plan.
Nevertheless it ran to seven volumes, published between the years
1872 and 1897. There are nearly 6000 pages of letterpress, relating
to 16,000 species. It is, he says in the Preface, a pioneer work, and
necessarily incomplete. But he hopes it may "help the phytographer to
discuss problems of distribution of plants from the point of view of
what is perhaps the richest, and is certainly the most varied botanical
area on the surface of the globe."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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