XXX11 



Obituary Notice of Fellow deceased. 



That was a time of stress ; Hooker wrote to Darwin, " I am plodding away 

 at Wehvitschia by night and ' Genera Plantarum ' by day " (M.L., vol. 1, p. 467), 

 Darwin thought he was over-working (I.e., vol. 2, p. 284). The problem 

 was to determine the affinity underlying such extreme adaptive disguise. 

 Darwin said, " I see plainly that Welwitschia will be a case of Barnacles," 

 i.e., the Cirripeclia, his own study (M.L., vol. 1, p. 213). As an archaic survival 

 it " seems to be a vegetable Ornithorhyncus, and, indeed, more than that " 

 (M.L., vol. 2, p. 281). Hooker placed it in Gnetacece, a perplexing group standing 

 midway between Gymnosperms and Angiosperms, and there it remains. 

 Later botanists have disputed as to the nature of the ovular integuments ; but 

 it may be doubted whether this involves more than verbal distinctions. 



Hooker was now more and more absorbed by his larger undertakings, 

 and could spare little time for researches not ancillary to them. Two may 

 be mentioned. In 1875 he made a careful study of Prosopanche, of which 

 a solitary South American species represents the strange African parasites, 

 Hyclnora. He contributed to the ' Annals of Botany ' in 1887 a description 

 of Hydrothrix, a new genus of Pontecleriacece, which had escaped notice in 

 the ' Genera,' founded on an amphibious Brazilian plant, exceptional amongst 

 its allies in its single-stamened flowers. 



Balsams (Impatiens) had always attracted Hooker, no doubt from the 

 morphological interest of their floral structure, and the extreme difficulty of 

 studying it in a dried state, which makes them the despair of herbarium 

 students. He described the Indian species in 1860 and worked them over 

 again for the ' Flora of British India ' in 1875, and once more for the 

 'Kecords of the Botanical Survey of India,' from 1904-6. The genus 

 continued to furnish the recreation and occupation of his remaining years. 

 Hooker turned his attention to China, which, when opened up to collectors, 

 proved extremely rich in new species of the genus. Foreign herbaria were 

 only too glad to put their material at his disposal. The results of his studies, 

 published from time to time, were the subject of no less than 14 papers. In 

 one in French, contributed in 1908 to the ' Nouvelles Archives du Museum,' 

 he described the species in the Paris Herbarium. He was then able to say that, 

 while in 1862 135 species were known, he was now able to recognise some 

 500. The difficulty of the task he had imposed upon himself may be judged 

 from his remark : " Celui qui etudie ce genre sur le sec apprend vite qu'il 

 n'y a pas de plus grand difficulte pour un systematicien que l'analyse, la 

 coordination et la description des Impatiens." The process of soaking and 

 laying out the flowers for examination was extremely tedious and required 

 great skill ; " chaque pli doit disparaitre ; et cela souvent est une operation 

 si longue qu'une heure et souvent deux ou trois suffisent a peine pour une 

 fleur." Hooker still continued his work on Impatiens, till his forces finally 

 failed him, and its last instalment, with dissections drawn, as in others, by 

 his own hand, did not appear till shortly after his death. He was unable to 

 frame a classification which entirely satisfied him, but he was able to 

 establish the remarkable fact that the species are grouped in geographical 



