i2 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



quate equipment or endowment that has prevented the reahzation 

 of this hope. 



Only one continent remained as yet unvisited by Hooker. He 

 may be said to have inherited the friendship of Asa Gray from his 

 father; but until 1877 he had not visited North America. In that 

 year the two friends accompanied Dr. Hayden, the head of the 

 United States Topographical and Geological Survey, to Colorado 

 and Utah. Nearly one thousand species were collected; and the 

 conclusions arrived at w^ere first published in a paper " On the 

 Botany of the Eocky Mountains " in Nature for October 25, 1877, 

 which was accompanied by a steel-engraved portrait of Hooker by 

 C. H. Jeens, from a photograph by G. M. Wallich, and by a memoir 

 by Asa Gray. " No living botanist," writes the American pro- 

 fessor, "that w^e know of has shared Sir J. D. Hooker's oppor- 

 tunities of studying in place the living vegetation of so many 

 parts of the world." Alluding to Banks, Asa Gray says also that 

 botanists all over the world " rejoice to see the presidential chair 

 at the Eoyal Society occupied for the second time by a botanist 

 and explorer. They concede the paramount claims of public duty, 

 yet not without a shade of jealousy and regret ; for adminis- 

 tration is time-consuming and endless, while Hookers and their 

 like are few." A lecture at the Eoyal Institution in 1878 On the 

 Distribution of North American Plants was published in 1879 ; 

 and the detailed official report of the journey. Hooker's share in 

 which is one of his most valuable contributions to phyto- 

 geography, appeared in 1881 in the sixth volume of the Bulletin 

 of the United States Geological Survey. On this journey Hooker, 

 probably the only botanist who has ever studied the three species 

 of Cedrus — or forms, as he preferred to consider them — in their 

 native habitats, was able to examine the giant Sequoias and other 

 conifers of equal age ; and in 1880 he published a description of 

 the interesting insular variety of Cedar discovered by Sir Samuel 

 Baker in Cyprus. 



After his long term of public service Hooker had now well 

 earned his retirement. Kew had been enriched in 1880 by the 

 gallery of pictures presented by Miss North ; and, in 1882, by the 

 addition of the charming rock-garden. The actual resignation 

 came in 1885, when Hooker was succeeded by his son-in-law Mr. 

 (now Sir William) Thiselton Dyer ; but though he left Kew for 

 the less accessible Sunningdale, which led ultimately to his giving 

 up the editorship of the Botanical Magazine, he by no means 

 abandoned botany, and was constantly at the scene of his many 

 years' labours. 



It is, perhaps, to be regretted that in these later years, when 

 he had already reached the full span of years traditionally allotted 

 to mankind, distrust of his own power of sustained work deterred 

 him from undertaking some substantive work on phytogeography. 

 In lieu of this he undertook from time to time a stupendous series 

 of editorial tasks. In 1887, 1892 and 1900 he revised the fifth, 

 sixth and seventh editions of Bentham's Handbook of the British 

 Flora, and, by judicious omission of book-names and addition of 



