THE STUDENT'S FLORA 85 



matter of importance to me now as the children grow up 

 and my income is yearly more inelastic. 



This was published in 1870 under the title of * The Students' 

 Flora of the British Islands ' ; it reached a second edition in 

 1878, and a third in 1884. 



Its aim was to * supply students and field botanists with a 

 fuller account of the plants of the British Isles than the manuals 

 hitherto in use aim at giving.' Nor is this all that English 

 students and lovers of our native plants owe to him. In 

 1887, after Bentham's death, he edited the fifth edition of 

 Bentham's ' Handbook of the British Flora.' To quote Pro- 

 fessor Bower, ' Both of these still hold the field, though they 

 require to be brought up to date in point of classification 

 and nomenclature.' 



In the spring of 1867 Hooker went officially to Paris as 

 Juror in the botanical section of the Exposition. Similarly 

 in 1869 he 



was threatened with being sent to St. Petersburg by Govt. 

 to represent British Botanists and Horticulturists (God help 

 them) at the approaching Congress which the Emperor has 

 taken up. I hate the sort of thing, but shall have to go. 



He goes on to tell Darwin (March 11) how he is ' mugging 

 up French as hard as he can ' with the help of a French Baron 

 from London two hours daily, besides French novels with 

 his wife and French conversation with Miss Symonds, who was 

 staying at Kew. He was also getting three months ahead 

 with his current duties in hopes of extending his travels from 

 St. Petersburg for a couple of months to the South-East. 



In the end, however, the Treasury refused to send him, 

 and he went, accompanied by his wife, independently, and not 

 as a delegate. His tour, which did not take him to any new 

 botanical regions beyond Moscow, lasted six weeks, from May 7 

 to June 23, going by Berlin and returning by Stockholm. 



As a traveller, his delight in flowers and scenery remained 

 vivid as ever, and as of old, he pointed his descriptions of 

 strange places by references to familiar scenes. To his mother 

 he tells of the wistarias in the beautiful gardens at Brussels, 



