596 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



(Brit. Assoc. Reports, 1847), was the forerunner of that study of 

 oceanic deposits which many years later became (especially in con- 

 nection with the voyage of the Challenger a great and important 

 branch of research. Similarly his papers on Stigmaria and Lepidos- 

 trobi in the memoirs of the Geological Survey, 1848, were the start- 

 ing point of the study of the tissues of ancient fossil plants by means 

 of the miscroscope. He was the first to have sections of fossils cut 

 sufficiently transparent for that purpose, a method which in the 

 hands of a later generation has yielded very important results. 



In the domain of physiology, besides some other contributions, 

 there stands out his remarkable work on the attraction, capture, and 

 digestion of insects by the pitcher plants (Brit. Assoc. Reports, 

 Belfast, 1874, and "Nature," 1870). The work was suggested by 

 Darwin when investigating the carnivorous habits of the sundew 

 (Drosera.) Experiments as to the digestive ferment and micro- 

 scopical investigation of the glands, etc., were made by Hooker, 

 aided by Dyer, at Kew. In the special stud}'' and exploration of 

 remarkable morphological characters, Hooker's investigation of the 

 root parasites known as Balanophoreae — curiously simple in struc- 

 ture, without leaves or petals — formerly thought to be allied to the 

 fungi, but shown by Hooker to be degenerate mistletoes, is a sample 

 of his morphological work (On the Structure and Affinities of the 

 Balanophoreae, Linnsean Society Transactions, 1856). He made 

 acquaintance with these strange plants both in New Zealand and in 

 the Himalayas. 



But the most striking thing which he did in this way was his 

 description of the morphology, development and histology, and the 

 determination of the affinities of a weird-looking South African 

 plant discovered by Dr. Welwitsch in dry country inland from 

 Walfisch Bay, and sent by him to Kew. Hooker named it after its 

 discoverer; and specimens of it (since received through other travel- 

 ers) have been kept in cultivation ever since in one of the hothouses 

 at Kew (On Welwitschia, a new Genus of Gnetacese, Trans. Linn. 

 Soc, 1863). Hooker's triumph in this investigation was that of 

 showing, by microscopic examination of the tissues and of the re- 

 productive structures and their development, that this strange-looking 

 plant is one of the Gnetacea?, a family including the little European 

 Ephedra and grouped with the Cycads, the Gingko trees, and the 

 Conifers in the great assemblage called Gymnosperms. In the Life 

 and Letters we have a delightful picture (which will stir the 

 sympathy of every morphologist) of his excitement, his hard work 

 with the microscope, his reasoning, his results, and the reaction that 

 followed. He writes (Jan. 20, 1862), to Huxley— 



