BihliograpJiical Notice. 391 



Ten years as assistant to his father, the Director of the Eoyal 

 Botanic Gardens, Kew, were followed by twenty more as Director, 

 and then by tweuty-six of busy scientific labours unshackled by 

 the claims of ofKcial administration, until that December day in 

 1911 when he was laid to rest beside his father in the churchyard 

 on Kew Green, a veteran of 9-1 years, full of honours, with a 

 splendid record of work. 



His published works are proof of the power he possessed of 

 pursuing his purposed path, in spite of absorbing official duties 

 as head of the great national botanic institution, which owes so 

 much to the two Hookers. 



Where so much was accomplished it is hard to select for mention, 

 but we may instance the six quarto volumes on the material 

 brought home from the Southern Seas, ' Flora Antarctica,' ' Flora 

 Novte Zealaudiae,' and ' Flora Tasmauise,' 1844-60. Here we have 

 not merely an enumeration of the plants, but in the ' Flora Tas- 

 maniae ' we tiud a luminous exposition of distribution in space aud 

 time prefixed to the euumeration. His 'Himalayan Journals' 

 ly54, form a fascinating record of his travels aud captivity in that 

 regiou. A faculty he possessed in singularly large measure, of 

 methodizing facts and putting them into a convincing and lucid 

 form, even on a small scale, and we note how he rapidly seized the 

 important characters of plants aud so described them, that his 

 writings are readily utilized. 



His masterly survey of Arctic plants (1861) shows how keen 

 he was on questions of distribution, and his account of the plants 

 of the Galapagos Islands (1849), both in the Linnean Society's 

 'Transactions,' confirm this statement. 



With Dr. Thomas Thomson (1817-78) he essayed a 'Flora Indica,' 

 1855, but the experience gained in producing the single volume issued 

 showed him that a work conceived on that scale was impossible of 

 production. ' The Flora of British India,' therefore, Avas planned 

 on a more modest scale, and with other Indian botanists to help 

 by undertaking assigned portions. The soundness of this pro- 

 cedure was proved by the finishing of this enumeration in seven 

 octavo volumes, 1872-1897, an event marked by the striking and 

 presentation of a gold medal by the Linnean Society in 1898. 



The ' Genera Plantarum,' 1862-83, which was worked up chiefly 

 from material at Kew, in conjunction with George Bentham, was a 

 monumental production, in which both of those distinguished 

 phytographers contributed their ripe experience ; it diftered from 

 its predecessors by being based upon actual examination of authen- 

 ticated specimens or actual types, and was not merely literary com- 

 pilation. The last big work on which Hooker started to engage 

 was that termed 'Index Kewensis,' which occupied thirteen years 

 and a half from first to last. It was due to Charles Darwin, who 

 induced Sir Joseph Hooker to get the work undertaken ; he 

 approved the plan submitted by the actual compiler, and acted as 

 the channel by which the needful funds were received from 

 Mrs. Darwin. As the work progressed aud became available for 



