40 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



of the evolutionary views of a " lumper." For assistance in 

 treating the genera Buhus, Bosa, and Hieraciwn he had recourse 

 to Mr. J. G. Baker. Still more novel, however, was the incorpo- 

 ration in such a pocketable volume of indications of British 

 altitudinal and comital distribution, taken from Watson's Cybele, 

 and of extra-British distribution from Nyman's Sylloge. The 

 result was a marvel of compressed information that secured an 

 immediate success for the work. In the preface to the first 

 edition he expressed a wish for a companion volume dealing with 

 the physiological peculiarities of the various species ; but in the 

 third edition, in 1884, for which he acknowledges help from Mr. 

 Baker, Mr. Nicholson, Mr. John Ball, and Mr. Arthur Bennett, 

 he to a considerable extent supplied such information by the 

 addition of such single words as " anemophilous," "homogamous," 

 or " proterandrous." 



Hooker had long wished to compare the flora of the Atlas 

 with what he had seen years before of those of Madeira and the 

 Canaries, and with his herbarium knowledge of Fernando Po and 

 Abyssinia. In April, 1871, having secured permits from the 

 Sultan of Morocco through the Foreign Office, he started with 

 his friend, John Ball, the distinguished Alpinist, w^ho had also an 

 excellent critical knowledge of plants, George Maw (a skilled 

 geologist), and a young gardener from Kew, by way of South- 

 ampton and Gibraltar to Tangier, Tetuan, Ceuta and Mogador, 

 and inland to the ridge of the Great Atlas. He was back again 

 in England in June ; and, though he had taken full notes during 

 the trip, pressure of official duties, and, at this time, one must 

 add, worries, together with his election in 1873 to the presidential 

 chair of the Eoyal Society, threw the bulk of the subsequent work 

 upon Ball. He it was who prepared the Spicilegium Florca 

 Maroccance for the Journal of the Linnean Society of 1877-8, and 

 upon him too devolved most of the preparation of the interesting 

 Journal of a Tour in Morocco and the Great Atlas, which appeared 

 in the latter year. The first two chapters are mainly the work of 

 Hooker, together with three valuable appendices dealing with 

 economic plants, and those comparisons of the flora with those of 

 the Canaries and the mountains of Tropical Africa, which were 

 the main obJ3ct of the journey. Two or three striking sketches of 

 the mountains, in this volume, are from Hooker's pencil. 



It is not necessary here to dwell on the friction that occurred 

 in 1871 between Hooker, as Director of Kew, and the notoriously 

 tactless First Commissioner of Works, Mr. Ayrton. Middle-aged 

 playgoers will remember how that statesman furnished one of the 

 main parts in the suppressed burlesque of " The Happy Land." 

 The stupid attempt to disintegrate the whole organization of Kew 

 ended discreditably for the Minister, and evoked widespread 

 expressions of sympathy and admiration for the great botanist. 



In 1872 appeared the first volume of the Flora of British 

 India, planned on the more modest scale of the Colonial Floras 

 already issued, in place of that of the Flora Indica of 1855. This 

 work was completed in 1897 in six volumes, and a copious index. 



