Page:The Journal of Indian Botany.djvu/315

Review. 273 the same genera and even species are found. Another outstanding fact, for which he was not prepared, was the way in which his species from different regions run into one another, for he naturally at this time accepted the belief of his day that they were all fixed and distinct. His work therefore prepared him to accept Darwin's view when known, yet his native caution and critical spirit made him slow to adopt it, and at first he merely accepted it as a working hypothesis, giving scope for reason and reflection, and hopes of a rational explanation of the origin and dispersal of species, whereas "the old stick-in-the-mud doctrines of absolute creations, multiple creations, and dispersion by actual causes under existing circumstances are all used up, they are so many stops to further inquiry : if they are admitted as truths, why there is an end of the whole matter." The Flora of New Zeland was based on the old principle, but when the Tasmauian Flora was published he had whole- heartedly adopted the new.

Hooker's second and most important botanical journey, after the Antarctic expedition, was to the Himalayas. On his way out to India, when stopping at Cairo, he made a trip into the desert, that he might make some observations on its temperature and dryness, in order to see how near the starving and burning point vegetation would exist, in comparison with his many observations in the Antarctic of how much cold they would bear.

The story of his experiences in India has been told in his Himalayan Journals, his delight in the wealth of beautiful plants in the mountain jungles, his difficulties in collecting and preserving in monsoon weather, his native collectors and the elephant that gathered inaccessible plants for him, his imprisonment and ill-treatment by a hostile Dewan. Many of his specimens were lost or spoiled, but hundreds of cases reached safety. The rhododendrons required a book for themselves which was finely illustrated and edited by his father. At 18,000 ft., where no other known shrub grows, he discovered the little Rhododendron nivale with matted branches straggling on the ground, small scented leaves and purple flowers, struggling successfully against the rigours of the climate ■ — scorching sun followed by keen frost at night, utter drought follow- ed by extreme moisture, short time for blooming and few insects to help in fertilisation. His vivid description makes one regret more keenly than ever that one who could write thus sympathetically of plants should have been obliged to cut down the Flora of British India to so bare a description of each species. The volume brought out with the co-opera- tion of his friend and companion Thomson, had an Introduction of 280 pages, and an equal amount of description, extending only from Ranuncula^ Ceace to Fumariaceae ; but the East India Company refused any assistance, and the authors were so much out of pocket by their venture that it was impossible to continue the work on the same scale. Fifteen years after, in 1870, the India Council was moved to take an interest in the matter, and for twenty-seven years Hooker worked at the Flora, with help of various collaborators, and utilizing the collections of Wight, Falconer, Griffith, Wallich and others for all the districts of India not visited by himself. The last three volumes of the seven were brought out after his retirement from Kew, and to the end of his long life he continued to work at Indian botany, which he loved, revising the Indian balsams, and comparing them with African and Chinese'balsams, delighted to find when over 90 years of age that " eyes and fingers are good as ever".

The F. B. I., he calls a pioneer work merely, and often expressed a great wish to see India properly botanized. The specimens from which he