SKETCH OF DOCTOR J. D. HOOKER. . 237 



SKETCH OF J. D. HOOKEK, F.E.S., LL.D. 



AMONG the scenes of interest near London which earliest attract 

 the foreign visitor, is the magnificent Botanical Garden at 

 Kew. It occupies 300 acres, which are crowded with the wealth of 

 the vegetable kingdom, and forms the most extensive and perfect hor- 

 ticultural establishment in the world. It has three museums, contain- 

 ing upward of 50,000 objects of rare scientific interest exquisitely ar- 

 ranged, the completest botanical library ever yet brought together, a 

 series of ample and admirably-constructed hot-houses, a pinetum, a 

 water-lily aquarium, an extensive and richly-stocked arboretum, fern- 

 houses, both tropical and temperate, an orchid-house, a house for be- 

 gonias and gesneracea, together with a variety of other greenhouses 

 and extensive plots of ground covered with herbaceous plants, and 

 beautified to perfection. Kew Garden is one of the most popular 

 places of resort in England. Some 700,000 people visit it annually, and 

 the least educated of all this multitude cannot pass through it without 

 learning something. The exotic plants nurtured in the hot-houses ; 

 the indigenous and naturalized plants blooming in the gardens ; the 

 dried specimens preserved in the herbarium ; the various objects of 

 curiosity treasured up in the three museums of economic botany — vie 

 with each other in claiming the attention of even the most indifferent 

 observer. 



Learned philosophers and young children can equally find there 

 abundant objects replete with interest for each, and worthy of length- 

 ened contemplation : one loiters to examine curiosities of vegetation, 

 such as the inner bark of " traveler's joy " {Clematis vitalba), used by 

 the Swiss as a vegetable sieve for straining milk ; or the inside of the 

 towel-gourd, used in the West Indies as a sponge or a scrubbing- 

 brush. There is an orange-tree, such as in the island of St. Michael 

 produces 20,000 oranges in a year. Here is the caricature-plant, with 

 the whimsical variegation of its leaves ; the telegraph-plant, with the 

 jerking of its lateral leaflets like the signals of the old semaphore ; 

 the tuberose, exhaling the most delicious perfume, and the stinking 

 carrion-flower of South Africa ; the pitcher-plant, each blossom con- 

 taining half a pint of water and a swarm of drowned insects ; and 

 the Venus's flytrap, which springs its toothed leaves together for the 

 capture of gnats and flies. At every turn and nook there are curiosi- 

 ties to excite the observant, and gratify the seeker for systematic, 

 economic, or descriptive botanical knowledge. 



Kew has been a place of plants, a nursery or seed-plot for the 

 study of floriculture and horticulture, for more than a hundred years. 

 It was a royal property, being purchased in 1730 by Frederick Prince 

 of Wales, the great-grandfather of the present queen. The original 



