Ixxx Sir William Jackson Hooker . 
size, selected from sound trees, partially polished and often of 
uncommon beauty. Almost all these timbers were named by 
men of scientific attainments and practical knowledge, and 
they were accompanied by reports containing a vast amount 
of serviceable information on their uses, qualities, &c. 
Herbarium and Library. As stated at p. lvi, when the 
new Director of Kew took up his appointment, neither books 
nor a herbarium were provided for him ; but he was well 
equipped with those of his own ; nor was it till he was moved 
into a residence in the Royal Gardens, that he received any 
other substantial aid towards their upkeep and increase than 
house-rent, and latterly stationery and some cabinets. It 
is also told that the new residence not affording that accom- 
modation for these which the Government had guaranteed, 
they were placed in a building adjacent to the Botanic 
Gardens. On this occasion it was arranged between the 
Commissioners and my father, that, on the condition of 
his herbarium and library being accessible to botanists *, he 
should be provided with such a scientific herbarium curator 
as he had himself hitherto salaried 2 . 
Four years afterwards, the Royal Gardens came into pos- 
session, by gift, of the very extensive library and herbarium 
of G. Bentham, Esq., F.R.S., which was second to my father’s 
alone in England in extent, methodical arrangement, and 
nomenclature, and which was placed in the same building. 
Its formation was begun in 1816, in France, where and in the 
Pyrenees Mr. Bentham collected diligently; but its great 
expansion by the inclusion of exotic plants dated from his 
introduction to my father in Glasgow in 1833, when the 
friendship between the two commenced which remained 
1 From the date of his taking np the Glasgow Professorship, his herbarium and 
library had been open to botanists, as was its owner’s hospitable table to visitors 
from a distance. 
2 One of his curators, Dr. J. E. Planchon, subsequently attained to great 
eminence as Professor of Botany in Montpellier, where he carried out his researches 
in the vine disease caused by the ravages of the Phylloxera , which has cost France 
so many millions. He was the discoverer of the only effectual check to the propaga- 
tion of this pest, by grafting Vitis vinifera on stocks of American species, which 
he proved to be almost immune from the attacks of that insect. 
