XXX 



Obituary Notice of Fellow deceased. 



' Index Kewensis.' Darwin had found the usefulness in his own work of 

 Steudel's ' Nomenclator Botanicus,' an alphabetical list of specific names of 

 plants, with their native countries. This, since its publication in 1841, 

 had fallen completely out of date. Sir William Hooker, however, had 

 commenced having an interleaved copy continuously posted up, and this 

 had been carried on for the use of workers in the Herbarium. Darwin thought 

 that it might be printed ; but this was not found to be altogether practicable. 

 Hooker having associated with himself John Ball and several members 

 of the Kew staff, it was decided to base the work on the ' Genera Plantarum,' 

 to which it would serve as a complement, and to give under each genus the 

 published species, with the place of publication and their native countries. 

 The work was entrusted to Mr. Daydon Jackson, who was occupied upon it 

 for ten years. Printing was commenced in 1892 and completed in 1895. 

 Hooker "most generously devoted an immense amount of time to the 

 herculean and monotonous task of revision, and .... brought his vast 

 personal knowledge to bear on the independent but by no means incon- 

 siderable task of settling the geographical distribution " (' Kew Bull.,' 1893, 

 p. 343). The result has been described justly as <: a work with regard to which 

 the feeling is one of incapacity to understand what its absence implied." 



Hooker edited, in 1896, the journal kept by Sir Joseph Banks during 

 Cook's first voyage round the world, which Admiral Wharton had described 

 in his own preface to Cook's ' Journal ' as " to the English nation the most 

 momentous voyage of discovery that has ever taken place." Hooker's 

 object was " to present him as the pioneer of those naturalist voyagers of 

 later years, of whom Darwin is the great example." Dawson Turner, 

 Hooker's maternal grandfather, who had been a friend of Banks, had under- 

 taken to write his life, a task he never accomplished. Two of his daughters 

 made a transcript of the 'Journal,' the original of which Hooker saw as a boy 

 in 1833, when he was " fascinated " with it, and " never ceased to hope that 

 it might one day be published." Banks' papers were for some time in the 

 custody of the British Museum, but were ultimately sold by Lord Brabourne. 

 Beyond the fact that Banks' Journal was purchased by a dealer for 

 £7 2s. 6d., its ultimate fate was unknown. As has since been ascertained, 

 it has found an appropriate resting-place in the Mitchell Library at Sydney. 

 The Turner transcript was retained at the British Museum, and Hooker 

 was allowed to have it copied. In preparing it for the press he freely 

 excised what was the mere record of trivial daily occurrence, and some 

 matter too anthropological for general publication. The manuscript copy 

 upon which he worked was presented by Mr. Beginald Hooker, who assisted 

 his father, to the Kew Library. 



Having finished the 1 Flora of British India ' as already stated, Hooker 

 took up the completion of Trimen's ' Handbook to the Flora of Ceylon,' left 

 unfinished by the author's death. This he completed in 1900, and in the 

 ' Imperial Gazetteer of India ' gave his final conclusions on the Indian 

 flora in 1907. 



