664 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 



Antarctic study and had manifested itself in 1856 and in 1861 in 

 dealing with the Arctic plants collected during the Franklin searches 

 and the McClintock expedition. The problems involved were dealt 

 with in a comprehensive fashion in 1861 in Hooker's classic, Outlines 

 of the Distribution of Arctic Plants. A group of kindred problems 

 had presented themselves to Hooker when engaged in the study of 

 the vegetation of the more o. trying Antarctic and sub-Antarctic 

 islands, and subsequently when dealing with the plants of Galapagos. 

 To this period, therefore, we may most properly ascribe the formation 

 of the views enunciated in a notable discourse on Insular Floras, 

 delivered at the meeting of the British Association at Norwich in 

 1866. Yet another allied group of problems called for consideration 

 in connection with his Antarctic, Indian, and African studies; his 

 conclusions with regard to these are stated in his Introductory Essay 

 to the Flora of Tasmania, published in 1860; the opinions there 

 expressed on the origination and distribution of species suffice to 

 explain the action which Hooker took when, in conjunction with 

 Lyell, he had induced Darwin, in 1858, to publish a preliminary 

 sketch of his famous hypothesis. 



To the same period of his activities belongs the share taken by 

 Hooker between 1858 and 1864 in the preparation of Thwaites's 

 enumeration of the plants of Ceylon. To this period we owe, more- 

 over, the codification of the results given in the second portion of 

 the Antarctic flora in the form of a Handbook of the New Zealand 

 Flora, contributed to the series of Colonial floras published under 

 Government authority. The work was issued in part in 1863; the 

 concluding portion was published in 1867, shortly after the period 

 had come to an end. But to this period we owe, in addition, various 

 important special studies on the structure and affinities of Balano- 

 phoreae, published in 1856; on the origin and development of the 

 pitchers of Nepenthes, in 1859; and on Welwitschia, in 1863. The 

 most obvious result of Hooker's visit to Syria in 1860 is a paper on 

 the cedars of Lebanon, Taurus, Algeria, and India, published in 1862, 

 In this article a subject of great interest and considerable difficulty 

 is handled with masterly skill. But the journey bore further fruit 

 in the form of a singularly pleasing sketch of the botany of Syria and 

 Palestine, contributed in 1863 to Smith's Bible Dictionary. Exten- 

 sive and important as these various contributions to botanical knowl- 

 edge are, they do not include all that Hooker accomplished while 

 assistant director; the most onerous and important undertaking ini- 

 tiated during this period has still to be mentioned. In renewed col- 

 laboration with Mr. Bentham was commenced one of the oustanding 

 botanical monuments of the nineteenth century, in the form of a 

 great Genera Plantarum; of the three volumes which this work 

 includes, the first was completed in 1865. 



