7 
Group in 1856. It is ere only proper to assign to this 
period the formation of the views to which sa ita was given 
in a discourse on ‘ Insular Ploves? at the Norwich meeting of the 
British Association in 1866, the year following its close. 
During this period, Hooker continued, in conjunction with Thomson, 
the floristic work based on their Indian collections. Their ‘ Flora 
Indica,’ the only ‘alate of which had been issued in 1855, was indeed 
definitely abandoned. But during the years 1858 to 1861 the two 
friends published a series of ‘ Praecursores’ dealing with the species 
of a number of important natural families of Indian plants. Hooker 
also took a very considerable share between 1858 and 1864 in 
the preparation of Thwaites’ enumeration of the plants of Ceylon, 
and was responsible for the preparation and issue, in 1865, of the 
catalogue of the specimens distributed from the herbaria of 
Falconer, Griffith and Helfer. 
If during this period we find no further palaeobotanical contribu- 
tions, there is evidence that his interest in the flora of Africa, lit up 
by his visits to the Cape Verde and other islands in 1839, further 
manifested in 1847 and 1849, and again shown in 1852, 1854, 1860 
and 1861 had not abated, because in 1862 and again in 1864 he dealt 
critically with the important collections made by Mann in pieoseed 
Po and the Cameroons; in 1865 he described some new and interes 
ing African species of Aristolochia; in 1868 and 1871 he con- 
tributed to the ‘Flora of Tropical Africa.’ But the most 
important systematic work undertaken during the time that Hooker 
was Assistant Director has still to be mentioned. He began in 
collaboration with Mr. Bentham the Seaicaaetiahine of a ‘Genera 
Plantarum,’ based principally on the material contained in the 
pete ae at Kew. The first portion of this, one of the most 
important botanical works of the nineteenth century, was issued in 
1862, and the first volume, ending the Calyciflorae, was completed in 
1865. 
The death in that year of the illustrious Sir W. J. Hooker was 
followed by the succession of his son to the post of Bitactor of the 
Royal Gardens, Kew. This post Hooker occupied during the next 
twenty years. The onerous administrative duties of this position 
did not, however, interfere with the prosecution of the work he 
already had in hand. The New Zealand flora for the Colonial 
Floras series had indeed already been nearly completed, the second 
and concludin volume was issued in 1867. e continued to take 
one in 1883, With the santo to the Directorship came also 
succession to the editorship of the ‘ Botanical Magazine’ and of the 
‘Icones Plantarum,’ both of which he continued to issue after his own 
retirement in 1885. His father’s death added to Hooker’s duties 
also that of replacing, by his own ‘Students’ Flora’ published in 1870, 
the well-known ‘ British Flora.’ He also annotated and rearra nged 
the natural families of plants in the English edition of Le Maout 
and Decaisne in 1873, and in 1876 he wrote one of the most difficult 
to prepare but one of the most effective of his Saar the 
— on * Botany’ tor the series of Science 
e exact cter of Hooker’s dniion as Director did not 
ae cm my oe from further botanical travel, for he was able to 
