58 PnOCEEDIXGS or THE 



lecturing, attention to fundamentals, and working with schedules* 

 is more than enough for -^ of the men, and quite enough for 

 3 months work with men who have other things to attend to. 

 With such coaching the men hecome absolutely helpless when 

 turned out — all self-reliance is gone." 



IJis views on the scope and importance of botanical training are 

 given at some length in the Introduction to the * Flora ludica.' 

 1 am indebted to Mr. Alfred Mihies,of the Univei'sity of Loudon, 

 for the information that Hooker acted as Examiner m J3otany to 

 the University during two periods of ilve years each. Those of his 

 writings best known to students are Hookers ' students' Flora 

 of the British Islands ' (1870), the most scholarly of all our floras, 

 the English edition of Le Maout and JJecaisne's ' General System 

 of Botany,' translated by Mrs. Hooker (1873), a Primer on Botany 

 (187G), and Bentham & Hooker's 'Handbook of the British 

 Flora' (1887). 



To the publications of our Society Hooker was a copious 

 contributor. Tlie best known of his papers are perhaps his 

 "Outlines of the Distribution of Arctic Plants" (18Gl),and the very- 

 important monograph "On Wehvitschia" (ISd'S). The discovery 

 of this plant had ax-oused a very lively interest at the time, and 

 Hooker's Memoir was a detailed, intensive study of its morphology, 

 development, and histology, in recent years, at the initiative of 

 Prof. Pearson, of the South African College, Wehvitsclda has 

 been the subject of a fine series of additional papers extending 

 our knowledge in many ways. It is, however, safe to say that, 

 subject to the methods of investigation and amount of material 

 available half a century ago, the original account still holds its 

 place. This and a few other papers in the same field show 

 Hooker's capacity to work successfully along lines which were 

 not generally pursued, at any rate in this country, for another 

 fifteen or t\\'enty years. 



In addition to a fine incisive literary style. Hooker had artistic 

 gifts of a high order which were freyly employed in connection 

 with his pursuits. None but an artist could have knocked off the 

 panoramic views reproduced in the first edition of the 'Himalayan 

 Journals,' whilst his drawings of pints, tissues and the like were 

 exc(;llent. The sheets of dried plants which passed through his 

 hands for description gained much in value from the sketches of 

 analyses with which it was his practice to embellish them. 



In the conduct of tlie affairs of our Society Hooker always 

 showed the greatest activity ; and he served on the Council for 

 periods aggregating twenty years. It was largely at his instigation 

 that the 'Journal ' of the Society was founded; the circumstances 

 are given in the following passage t : — 



* The reference i.s doubtless to the schedules introduced by J. S. Henslow, 

 by means of which students could exhibit the salient external features 

 of a plant. 



t Extracted from Jackson's Life of George Bentham, 1906, pp. 169-170. 



