THE FLOEA INDICA 15 



Wood, who forestalled Denison's offer in November to see things 

 through in Calcutta, the India Council at home were beginning 

 to move. And he tells Anderson (September 19) : 



I am sure you have done all in your power and well done 

 too. I am not at all disappointed and will do my ' little 

 possible ' still ; under whatever shape the work is sanctioned 

 by whatever department of Govt. I am your man. . . . 

 As for the personal pay, I feel past paying for and 

 'praying for . . . but Thomson will no doubt take his share 

 (of the work) and I do suppose that T. Anderson, late 

 Director of the B. Bot. Gard. Calcutta, will in 1870 carry on 

 the work. ... I find the N.Z. Flora so onerous and labori- 

 ous, though I have thrice worked it all out, that I do dread 

 the Flora Indica. 



This was looking far ahead. But his fears as to its com- 

 pletion were sadly justified, more especially by Thomson's 

 illness and Hooker's accession to all his father's duties and 

 such unlooked-for tasks as the completion in 1868 of the 

 * Genera of Cape Plants ' x on Dr. Harvey's sudden death, for 

 Dr. Sonder, who was nominally collaborating, proved a broken 

 reed. 



For a long time, so far as Hooker was concerned, amid the 

 endless pressure of duties at Kew in addition to work at the 

 laborious Genera Plantarum, he could only hold a watching 

 brief for the Flora Indica. A typical note is dated December 30, 

 1864: 



I am working desperately hard at Herbarium and Garden 

 work, Genera Plantarum and Crypt ogamic portion of the 

 New Zealand Flora. I have also undertaken to finish 

 Boott's Carices and to publish 200 plates thereof. The 

 whole of the collections have come to Kew. Flora Indica 

 makes no progress. 



1 Though Harvey's Cape Flora had to be abandoned, Hooker, in default 

 of other aid, finished the Genera himself before July 7, when he wrote to Mr. 

 Bolus at the Cape. * It is true,' he notes a fortnight later, ' that each little 

 hiatus was little, but they could only be supplied by a full consideration of 

 collateral subjects.' But it was a laborious task for one already so busy who 

 was not personally familiar with the Cape Flora. He had added ' Sketches 

 of the Arrangement of the Classes and Orders that may assist the Students, and 

 the very improved Introduction to Botany from Harvey's Cape Flora.' 



