xxvm 



Obituary Notice of Fellow deceased. 



mountain chains are longitudinal, in the other latitudinal. Florida is 

 consequently exposed to northern blizzards, from which the European 

 Kiviera is immune. The Miocene flora had a circumpolar • extension. It 

 was driven south during the Glacial period. Practically exterminated in 

 Europe, it partially survived in Eastern Asia, where the glaciation was less 

 severe. Owing to its greater elevation the Glacial period was more intense 

 and more prolonged in Western than in Eastern North America ; in the 

 former the Miocene flora was exterminated with a few exceptions such as 

 Sequoia in California, and its place was ultimately taken by a flora of 

 Mexican origin ; in the latter it returned northward after a temporary retreat. 

 The whole subject was discussed in detail by Hooker in a report published 

 by the Department of the Interior of the United States Government in 1881. 



He had secured the attachment of naturalists to the Transit of Venus 

 Expeditions sent out in 1874, and the Eev. Mr. Eaton went to Kerguelen's 

 Land, which had also been visited by the Challenger earlier in the same year, 

 and where Hooker had himself collected in 1840. In 1879 he again discussed 

 all the available material ('Phil. Trans.,' vol. 168). The Fuegian affinities of 

 the flora were confirmed. " Winds almost throughout the year, blow from 

 Fuegia to Kerguelen Island .... but appear quite insufficient to transport 

 seeds over 4,000 miles." He still leaned, " as the forlorn hope of the botanical 

 geographer," to his early belief in the former existence of more land between the 

 two. On the other hand the remarkable fact which he had pointed out in 1875 

 (' Linn. Journ.,' vol. 14), that the scanty vegetation of Amsterdam Island and 

 Tristan d'Acunha, 3,000 miles apart, " approximates to that of South Africa," 

 may be due to transport by land-birds. He points out that " no trace of the 

 mountain flora of South Africa has been found in any of the southern group 

 of islands." And this is unfavourable to their having had any land connection 

 with South Africa on the one hand, or a hypothetical northward extension of 

 the Antarctic Continent on the other. 



The ' Genera Plantarum ' was completed in 1883, and with the eighties 

 Hooker began a determined attack on the ' Flora of British India.' This was 

 partly a labour of love, partly a service which he felt Kew had long owed to 

 the Indian Empire. He had utilised the co-operation of other botanists, but 

 gradually took the whole burden on to his own shoulders ; vol. 3 appeared in 

 1882 and vol. 4 in 1885. About that time he showed some symptoms of 

 failing health. He had never been content to live less than a full life, and 

 this his medical advisers decided could not continue. He resigned the 

 Directorship in 1885 and retired to a house he had built for himself at 

 Sunningdale. While this relieved him of official routine and social distraction 

 it enabled him to work at Kew several days a week in the room in the library 

 formerly occupied by Bentham. Under more tranquil conditions health was 

 happily completely restored. The 5th volume of the Flora was finished in 

 1890 ; the 6th in 1894, including the Orchidacece, to which he devoted two years' 

 work, and the 7th in 1897. 



In 1904, at the request of the India Office, he contributed to the 



