3o8 SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER 



chain, his notes supplying valuable material to both Lyell and 

 Darwin. He also accumulated valuable data concerning the 

 stupendous effects of sub-aerial denudation at great elevations. 

 His latest contribution of a geological character was in 1889, 

 when he returned to an old problem of his youth, the Silurian 

 fossil Pachytheca. But he had to leave the question of its nature 

 still unsolved. This geological record is not an extensive one. 

 But the quality and rapidity of the work showed that it was the 

 time and opportunity and not the faculties that were wanting. 

 Moreover, it is worthy of remark that the problems he handled 

 were all nascent at the time he worked upon them. 



The list of Sir Joseph Hooker's memoirs which deal morpho- 

 logically with more limited subjects than is possible in floristic 

 works, is a restricted one. In 1856 he produced a monograph 

 on the Balanophoraceae, based upon collections of material from 

 the most varied sources. It is still an authority very widely 

 quoted on these strange parasites. In 1859 he described the 

 development and structure of the Pitchers of Nepenthes^ while 

 the physiological significance of these, and other organs of 

 carnivorous plants, formed the subject of an Address before the 

 British Association at Belfast, in 1874. And in 1863 his great 

 monograph appeared upon that most remarkable of all Gymno- 

 spermic plants, Welwitschia. These works bore the character of 

 a later period than the time when they were produced. In 

 Britain, between 1840 and 1875, investigation in the laboratory, 

 by microscopic analysis of tissues, was almost throttled by the 

 overwhelming success of systematic and descriptive work. The 

 revival of investigation in the laboratory rather than that in the 

 herbarium dates from about 1875. But we see that Hooker was 

 one of the few who, prior to that revival, pursued careful 

 microscopic analysis side by side with systematic and floristic 

 work. 



The noble establishment of the Royal Gardens at Kew is 

 often spoken of as the Mecca of Botanists. It is also the 

 Paradise of the populace of London. It was the Hookers, 

 father and son, who made Kew what it is. When we contem- 

 plate Sir Joseph as an administrator, we immediately think of 

 the great establishment which he and his father ruled during the 



