CHAPTER XXIX 



SCIENTIFIC WORK, 1860-1865 



ALTHOUGH the last five years of the Assistant Directorship 

 were a period of great pressure administratively, it was also 

 a productive period in scientific work. 



Chief among Hooker's publications were ' The Outlines of 

 the Distribution of Arctic Plants,' which after being first read 

 at the Linnean, June 21, 1860, was completed for publication 

 in the transactions for 1862 ; a series of publications on the flora 

 of the Cameroons, based on Gustav Mann's collections ; 1 part 

 of the Handbook of the New Zealand Flora ; the famous Essay 

 on Welwitschia ; the Botany of Syria and Palestine for Smith's 

 Dictionary of the Bible, and the first parts of the Genera 

 Plantarum. 



Of these, the monumental Genera Plantarum deserves first 

 mention, for it marked an epoch in botany. With the advance 

 of knowledge, previous systematic works of the kind were no 

 longer adequate. These had been based on examination of 

 a relatively small number of plants, and were quite inade- 

 quate in face of the vast numbers of plants that came to Kew 

 from every part of the world. A great summary was more 

 than ever needful. 



Hooker did well by inspiring Bentham to join in this monu- 

 mental task at the very moment when he was inclined to retire 

 from botanical work. Both had long felt the need of a com- 

 plete summary of botanical diagnosis, but realised that it was 



1 One of these was an enumeration of the Mountain Flowering Plants and 

 Ferns of the whole region for Burton's Abeokuta and the Cameroons Mountains, 

 1863. 



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