13 
inclination is shown in an ae paper written and published while he 
was botanist on the “ Erebus he inclination, as was natural, was 
at its maximum while he was attached to the Geological Survey. 
It was still manifest, though less markedly so, after his return from 
India. His last addition to this field of knowledge appeared in 
1855; after he became Assistant Director, Hooker did not again — 
actively engage in palaeobotanical study. 
If from this period onwards Hooker’s work had as its material 
mainly phanerogamic plants, that work was of the most varied 
character. It is not difficult to trace the existence, at different 
periods of his career, of certain dominant interests. Unlike not a few 
distinguished travellers Hooker did not amass material and then 
leave it unelaborated. He is, on the contrary, one of the few 
exceptional men who have been in a Pigs to say that they had 
ploughed their furrow to the end. Vast as were the collections he 
had accumulated, before his life ended he “had dealt with them all. 
The circumstances under which his collections had been made of 
sige compelled him to deal with them on a floristic basis. The 
earliest of his collections being those made during his southern 
end the southern collections were attacked first. The work began 
immediately on his return to England, and as we have seen, its three 
geographical sections were dealt with in detail, beginning with the 
Antarctic and sub-Antarctic section. But we find, from papers 
published i in 1844, that both the New Zealand and Tasnianian sec- _ 
tions were already occupying his attention. During the years 
1845 to 1847, while the dominant interest was in Antarctic plants 
he paid no little attention to the Tasmanian flora, this interest 
culminating in the Tasmanian ‘Spicilegium’ of 1847, the appearance 
of which was coincident with the completion of the ‘ Flora Ant- 
arctica’ and with his own departure for India. From 1844 till his 
resumption of work in 1851, the New Zealand interest was in abey- 
ance. The Antarctic work, however, lighted up a new interest which 
extended its scope, and led to the simultaneous spn Tg of the 
evidence afforded by isolated islands or island groups in regions 
other than the Hib Antaretic, This cognate Eeiarest, which persisted 
long after the Antarctic work proper was completed, is shown in 
papers published in 1846 and 1847, again in 1856, 1857 and 1861, 
and yet again in 1875 and 1879. 
When active work on the collections made in the Southern Seas 
wet resumed after the completion of his Indian journeys, it was to 
e New Zealand section, hitherto left practically untouched and not 
he the Tasmanian ones which had occupied him before his departure, 
that his attention particularly turned. This fresh New Zealand 
interest was the dominant one until 1855, when Hooker became Assis- 
tant Director. But immediately the New Zealand work was over 
Hooker reverted to the Tasmanian collections, which provided what 
was his dominant interest until 1859. However, even during this 
period, the New Zealand interest still asserted itself ; he published 
papers dealing with New Zealand plants in 1857, 1859 and 1860, 
and the interest again became a dominant one from 1862 till 1867, 
during which period he prepared the New Zealand ‘ — k, 
a new interest, complementary to, and in a manner 
arising out of the sub-Antaretic work, manifested itself, "This was his 
