568 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVII. 



Graham was the first to attempt a local flora of Bombay. That he 

 succeeded in so high a degree, he owed to the work done by those 

 never tiring pioneers who had, years before, explored other parts of 

 Hindustan and occasionally also Western India ; and I am sure there 

 has not been a single Bombay botanist up to the present day who 

 could dispense with the old classics of Indian Botany. Local floras are 

 cropping up everywhere at present to our great delight, and, no doubt, 

 many a hard hour they must have caused their authors, but never- 

 theless I feel convinced those florists are the first to admit how much 

 they are indebted to their famous predecessors. 



Joseph Dalton Hooker, born on the 30th June 1817 at Halesworth 

 in Suffolk, forsook the practice of his medical profession for the more 

 fascinating pursuit in which his father, Sir William Jackson Hooker, has 

 so greatly distinguished himself. In 1.839, on the occasion of the fit- 

 ting out of the expedition to the Antarctic Ocean under Sir James Ross, 

 Hooker was appointed assistant surgeon on board the Erebus ; but his 

 real object was to investigate the botany of the district through which 

 the expedition passed. The result was the publication of the " Flora 

 Antarctica " in which Hooker has not only figured and described a 

 large number of new plants, but by comparison of the species obtained 

 in this voyage with those of other parts of the world, has succeeded 

 in advancing greatly our knowledge of the laws which govern the dis- 

 tribution of plants over the surface of our globe. After having investi- 

 gated the plants of temperate and cold climates, he could not rest till 

 he had seen those of tropical countries. His choice lay between the 

 Andes and the Himalayas, and it fortunately fell upon the latter (1848). 

 His route lay through districts not under British superintendence, and 

 his adventures, therefore, were numerous and his position occasionally 

 even, dangerous, having been for some time kept prisoner by the pre- 

 siding- governor of a district in the Sikkim-Himalaya. In 1852 he 

 returned* to England, and published his " Himalayan Journals," 

 in two volumes. They are one of the most readable contributions to 

 scientific travelling during the last century. His first volume of a large 

 work, entitled '"Flora Indica," gives a more perfect idea of his scientific 

 labours and affords the best evidence of the industry and intelligence 

 displayed during his three years' peregrinations in the Sikkim and 

 Nepal Himalayas. When Hooker in company with Thomas Thomson 

 wanted to publish the " Flora Indica" the Court of Directors refused 



