422 HOOKER'S POSITION AS BOTANIST 



Anatomy and Physiology were in danger of being atrophied 

 in the very land of their birth. Hooker himself formed a link 

 between the herbarium and the laboratory. In his own work 

 he held the balance between the two by a series of Memoirs 

 which were ' morphological ' in the modern sense. Already he 

 had pursued the microscopic study of the fossils Lepidoden- 

 dron and Pachytheca in a fashion in advance of his time ; later 

 he made similar investigations on living plants. Examples 

 of such work are found in his Memoir on the Balanophoraceae, 

 and" in his study of the development and structure of the 

 pitchers of Nepenthes. The physiological significance of these 

 and other organs of carnivorous plants formed the sub- 

 ject of his Address before the British Association in 1874. 

 It was in 1863 that the great Monograph appeared on that 

 most remarkable of all Gymnospermic plants, Welwitschia. 

 This may be held as the best example of his morphological 

 work, and compares favourably with any similar Monographs 

 of the period. The material came from a very limited area 

 of dry country inland from Walfisch Bay, on the South- West 

 Coast of Africa. It was supplied by Dr. Welwitsch and 

 others. The plant differs from any other known type, but 

 after a full examination of the structure of its vegetative and 

 reproductive organs, it was referred by Sir Joseph to the 

 Gnetaceae. The analyses of the propagative organs were 

 carried out by him with minute care. The whole plant is of 

 BO unusual a character that it was a real triumph to trace 

 the comparisons leading to the systematic position which he 

 assigned. Much modern work, by the aid of refined methods 

 of fixation and the use of the microtome, has only served to 

 confirm his classification of one of the most bizarre plants in 

 the Vegetable Kingdom. 



Such works bore the character of a time later than when 

 they were produced. They tided over the period when in 

 Britain investigation in the laboratory by means of the micro- 

 scopic analysis of tissues was almost throttled by the over- 

 whelming success of systematic and descriptive work. The 

 revival dated from about 1875. But we see in Hooker one of 

 the few who, prior to that date, pursued microscopic enquiry 



