142 SIR WILLIAM HOOKER 



skill and extraordinary rapidity of execution. The numbers 

 quoted give some idea of the magnitude of the results. 



For the purpose of a rapid review of the chief writings of 

 Sir William's later years, they may be classified under three heads, 

 viz. (i) Journals, (2) Floristic works, and (3) Writings on the 

 Filicales. Taking first the Journals, one of the most remarkable 

 features about them is the apparent variety and number of the 

 enterprises on which Sir William engaged: this is, however, 

 explained when they are pieced together as they will be found 

 below. His connection during 45 years with large and growing 

 gardens, into which the most varied living specimens were being 

 drafted in a constant stream, put him in possession of a vast 

 mass of facts, detached, but needing to be recorded. The 

 materials were thus present for that type of publication styled 

 a Botanical Miscellany. The majority of the serials which he 

 edited took this form, and though published under various titles, 

 dictated in some measure by the source of their publication, 

 more than one of them was a mere continuation of a predecessor 

 under a different title. The first of them appeared under the 

 name of the Exotic Flora, in three volumes (1823-7), with 

 232 coloured plates illustrating subjects from the Gardens of 

 Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Liverpool. But owing to his taking 

 up in 1827 the editorship of the Botanical Magazine, then in 

 a critical position, the Exotic Flora ceased, and its materials 

 swelled the pages of the more ancient serial, with which he was 

 connected till his death. 



To those not intimately acquainted with the other serials 

 edited by Sir William, their relations are difficult to trace. But 

 Sir Joseph Hooker has given their titles in series, with their 

 dates, as follows : 



Botanical Miscellany. 3 vols. 1830-33. 



Journal of Botany. I vol. 1834. 



Companion of the Botanical Magazine. 2 vols. 1835-36. 



J ar dine' s Annals of Natural History. 4 vols. 1838-40. 



The Journal of Botany (continued). Vols. II.-IV. 1840-42. 



The London Journal of Botany. 7 vols. 1842-48. 



The Companion of the Botanical Magazine. (New Series. 

 1845-48.) 



