14 
interest in Arctic vegetation, a subject he was to make peculiarly 
his own, which is shown in floristic contributions published in 1856, 
1861 and 1873. 
But collateral with the strong interests arising out of his own ex- 
periences in the field we find that another marked inclination ran 
through his work up to 1865, when he became Director of Kew. This 
was his interest in the vegetation of Tropical Africa, evidenced by 
important floristic contributions to knowledge in 1847, 1849 and 
1852, and again in 1860, 1862, 1864 and 1865. This interest 
was further manifested in the systematic treatment of certain 
genera and families in 1868 for the first volume and in 1871 for 
the second volume of the ‘Flora of Tropical Africa,’ and showed 
itself again in 1874, but this time in a modified form, in connection 
with his studies of mountain floras, a subject cognate on the one 
hand with his Antarctic and Arctic work, on the other hand with 
his investigations of Insular Floras. 
We find from his papers, that as early as 1847 Hooker was ready 
to deal with American plants as well, but if we except his su 
stantial floristic contributions to the ‘ Flora Brasilensis,’ published 
in 1867, there is no evidence that a floristic interest in American 
plants was ever strong. His first definite treatment of a North 
American plant only dates from 1874, and its mention at all is in 
connection with its distribution, not with its characters. The very 
great interest which he did subsequently take in the North American 
vegetation as the result of his visit to the United States in 1877 
was, as we shall see, phytogeographical and not floristic. 
From the time of his Indian journeys Hooker’s interest in the 
Indian Flora was as intense as that which he took in the floras dealt 
with in his ‘ Botany of the Antarctic voyage’ and, thanks to the 
assistance of his father, a very substantial floristic contribution, 
ased on his material and his field-descriptions was made as early 
as 1849. Thanks largely too, to the fact that he had the collabora- 
tion of his friend and fellow-traveller Thomson, much was 
accomplished even while the burdens of the Tasmanian and New 
Zealand floras lay heavily on him and hardly a year passed between 
1854 and 1864 without some substantial contribution, either from 
his own pen or with the collaboration of Thomson, to the floristic 
study of the vegetation of India, Malaya and Ceylon. But while 
he was, as we have seen, able to get through the heavy task of the 
reliminary arrangement of his Indian material in the meantime, 
the publication of Indian floristic work was in abeyance between 
1864 and 1872. As a matter of fact when the New. Zealand 
interest ceased to be dominant in 1867 MHooker’s floristic 
interest was transferred to the British Isles, and this British 
interest remained the dominant one until in 1870 the ‘ Students’ 
Flora’ appeared. But, this task ended, and the preliminary 
sorting of the Indian material accomplished, the dominant. interest 
was that which centred in the flora of India. This interest ma 
be said to have remained the dominant one for the rest of Hooker's 
life. Not only did it continue to be so without a break from 1872 
when the first part of the Flora of British India was published till 
1897 when that work was completed ; it was prolonged till 1900 in 
connection with the Ceylon Handbook and was revived by the 
