STAKT OF THE FLORA INDICA 855 



devoted to getting ready the materials for the New Zealand 

 Flora, so as to clear the field in part at least for the Indian 

 work. Though the last boxes of his collections arrived in 

 September and * astonished ' his father, to be followed im- 

 mediately by Thomas Thomson and his 'collection, numbering 

 twenty-five chests, it was not till March 20, 1852, that he wrote 

 to Bentham : 



I have broken bulk with the Indian collections, done all 

 the woods (about 500), Palms, Bamboos, and big things, 

 and am all ready to plunge into the Haystacks, working in 

 the rooms at Kew. 



Some of his Indian results had already been published 

 by the Asiatic Society of Bengal whilst he was in India. One 

 folio volume with fine illustrations of the Sikkim Ehododen- 

 drons, edited by Sir William from his son's notes, drawings, 

 and materials, appeared in successive parts between 1849 

 and 1851. i Another folio, a volume of illustrations of Hima- 

 layan plants from near Darjiling, chiefly collected by him 

 on behalf of an Indian friend, Mr. Cathcart, was edited, with 

 descriptions by Hooker himself, in 1855. 



But now Dr. Thomson settled hard by and spent a great 

 part of the next three years at Kew, completing his ' Travels in 

 Western Himalaya and Tibet,' published in 1852, and working 

 side by side with his friend at their common task. His masters, 

 the East India Company, encouraged him to work with promises 

 of reward if the work were satisfactory, but gave no imme- 

 diate help. Nor was assistance forthcoming from the British 

 Association. The nebulous hope of bringing out a whole 

 Flora of India, however, took solid shape when, on the death 

 of his father in 1852, Thomson came into a little money. This 

 he promptly devoted to science, paying for the huge volume 

 of 581 pages which he and Hooker brought out in 1855, and 

 hazarding repayment from ' John Company.' The detail of 

 this, the first and only volume of their Flora Indica, was so 

 full that if the work had been completed on the same scale, 

 it would have reached nearly 12,000 pages. 



1 See ante, p. 326. 



