Joseph Dalton Hooker ( 1817 - 1911 )

Mention of the name Hooker in connection with botany and horticulture is practically synonymous with the history of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew -a story of progressive expansion and development .

Joseph Dalton Hooker was born into a family of scientists on 20 June 1817, at Halesworth ,Suffolk, England . his grandfather had long taken pride in the cultivation of rare plants ; his maternal grandfather ,Dawson Turner,had been interested primarily in cryptogams and had published various works on mosses and ferns of Ireland and England ; and his father, William Jackson Hooker ,was a professor of botany at Glasgow University before becoming director at Kew.

Joseph first became interested in mosses , taking particular notice of them as a young child .Later he collected insects and terrestrial orchids,oftern in company with his father on expeditions into the highlands. He was educated at Glasgow High School and University ,his father being his instructor as well as holiday companion.

In 1839 he took his M.D. at the University . He had finished his medical studies successfully , also being well versed in botany and natural science , and it was then that a great opportunity came in young Hooker's appointment as assistant surgeon and naturalist aboard H.M.S. Erebus on an Antarctic expedition commanded by Sir James Ross . Cook's Voyages and the Voyage of the Beagle had been the delights of Hooker's boyhood , and the expedition thus enabled him to see those lands about which he had read and dreamed . New Zealand , Australia , Tasmania , Kerguelen, Tierra del Fuego, and the Falkland Islands became realities for him, and from each location large collections of plants were made from which a great amount of botanical information resulted. Six volumes were later devoted to the botanical accounts of the four-year trip , two under each of the three titles,Flora Antartica (1844-1847),Florae Novae Zelandiae (1852-1855),and Flora Tasmaniae (1855-1860).These and other publications consequent on the voyage were well received and appreciated . Less well known were Hooker's elaborate meteorological observations , made all during the voyage.

In 1841, while Joseph was yet traveling , his father was appointed director of kew.This was glad event for the Hookers , for they had always hoped that Kew could be a public garden. Father and son soon laid plans for a wider scope of these famous gardens. On his return to England Joseph visited the Continent , meeting botanists and exchanging plants for kew . After lecturing on botany at Edinburgh for a few years he was appointed botanist of a geological survey in Wales to investigate fossil flora .

In 1847 Joseph Hooker visited the Himalayas , spending three years studying the geography and flora of the regions visited, and making extensive collections .From a horticultural point of view this was the most productive of Hooker's travels . The accounts of the expedition, including details on the endemic orchids, was told in his Himalayan Journals, the two volumes of which were published in 1854. An interesting feature given in his Journals was the manner in which the expedition was outfitted . " My party," Hooker wrote ," mustered 56 persons. These consisted of myself and one personal servant , a Portuguese half caste , who undertook all offices and spared me the usual train of Hindu and Mahomedan servants . My tent and equipment , instruments , bed , box of clothes ,books and papers required a man for each. Seven more carried my papers for drying plants and other scientific stores .The Nepalese guard had two coolies of their own . My interpreter, the coolie sirdar (a headsman) and my chief collector (a Lepcha) had a man each. Mr. Hodgson's bird and animal shooter, collector and stuffer with their ammunition and indespensables had four more .There were , besides , three Lepcha lads to climb trees and change the plant papers,and the party was completed by fourteen bhutan coolies laden with food consisting chiefly of rice with ghee, oil ,capsicums, salt and flour . I carried myself a small barometer , a large knife and digger for plants ,note book, telescope,compass and other instruments ,whilst two or three Lepcha lads who accompany me as satellites carry a botanizing box, thermomestand, geological hammer,bottles and boxes for insects , sketch books etc. arranged in compartments of strong canvas bags."

Explorations in Sikkim and other westward journey with Dr. Thomas Thomson occupied over a year. A second Himalayan trip in 1849 led to trouble at the court of the regent of Sikkim, and Hooker was forcibly detained for twelve months , at the end of which he was nearly assassinated. He returned to England in 1851.

Soon after his return from India Hooker was appointed examiner in botany for the Medical service . At the same time he busied himself with the examination and distribution of his collections . And in conjuction with Dr. Thomson began a Flora Indica, but only one volume was published because Thomson returned to India and Hooker took on new duties by his appointment to the post of assistant director at Kew under his father .

In 1860 he traveled to Syria and Palestine , the principal result of which was the discovery of the famous cedars of Lebanon . Much of the botanical information gained on that trip was published in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.

As assistant director ,Joseph Hooker did much systematic work, the most important of which was the preparation with George Bentham of the Genera Plantarum , the first of which was issued in 1862. He also contributed his Handbook of the New Zealand Flora (1864-1867) to the kew colonial floras .

When Sir William Hooker died in 1865 Joseph succeeded him as director of Kew. Administrative duties occupied much of his time thereafter , but this did not prevent him from the cntinuation of his scientific work and the unceasing introduction and culture of plants ,especially those of economic value .Great activity was also shown at Kew during Hooker's directorate , and not only did he give his labors but often his own earnings as well.

Hooker had felt for some time that the study of botany was in need of revision . His idea was that students should increasingly study the plants as well as dried specimens , and his aim was to set forth questions that required thought rather than rote memory . He considered botany " a science of observation" and effected the arrangement of the palm and temperate houses at Kew to duplicate as nearly as possible natural geographical distribution and similarities of habitat .

Another great botanist ,John Lindley , had died the yeat that Joseph Hooker assumed the directorate . Lindley's herbarium was acquired from his executors and presented to Kew by the government , and thus the Kew Herbarium took on added importance . The general collections were later presented to Cambridge University , but the 3000 specimens in the orchid herbarium were retained at Kew .

In 1871 Hooker undertook a botanical expedition to Morocco and the Atlas Range in company with John Ball and George Maw, and in 1877 he accompanied the American botanist ,Asa Gray, on a journey to Colorado, Utah, the Rocky Mountains , the Sierra Nevadas , and California . All the while he recorded his observations , classified specimens , and worked out new methods of reforming botanical studies .

Hooker was president of the Royal Society for five years , and even in that capacity he was able to make reforms. He effected a reduction of the ordinary subscription rate by asking for donations from wealthy members , thus making it possible for the scientist of meager resources to become a fellow . Actually , he had reluctantly accepted the presidency for, as he expressed it , he had an aversion to high places .

Hooker was a lifelong friend of Charles Darwin . The two collaborated mutually in their scientific work, and Hooker was especially influenced by Darwin's theories on evolution. With the whole outlook of botany in a state of change, Hooker was significantly impressed with Darwin's Origin of Species . The geographical distribution of plants was to him an essential part of the study of botany , for he no longer believed that a species was fixed but that plants adapted themselves to their environments and so changed.

Hooker's abilities as a writer were fantastic . Only a small percentage of his published works could be given here . The complete list , published in the Kew Bulletin for 1912, covered more than sixteen pages. As a biographer he wrote the life of Darwin , a sketch of his father's life , and a journal on Sir Joseph Banks. Besides sharing in the production of the Genera Plantarum , he was also editor of the Icones Plantarum and the Botanical Magazine , for forty years editing the 91 st to 130 th volumes of the latter .

Though it is necessary to pass over most of his books and papers ,his monumental Flora of the British Isles cannot be overlooked . In it he described many orders ,among them the Orchidaceae , including 116 genera and nearly 1300 species . The number of orchids figured in the Botanical Magazine during his editorship was also very great , as were his other contributions to orchidology. He studied the orchids of Ceylon and New Zealand , and as far back as 1854 published an important paper on the structure and fertilization of Listera . There are several reference to his work in Darwin's Fertilisation of Orchids.

Hooker's position as a scientist was duly recognized by the learned bodies of his own and foreign countries . Academic distinctions gained during the seventy active years of his life included the honorary degree of D.C.L. of Oxford and that of LL.D. of Cambridge , Edinburgh , Dublin , and Glasgow. In 1869 he was made C.B. ,in 1877 K.C. S.I ., and in 1897 G.C. S.I. He was also the recipient of many honors and medals from the Royal , Linnean and Geographical Societies and from the Society of Arts . in 1907, on his ninetieth birthday , he received the Order of Merit.

Sir Joseph passed away in his sleep on 10 December 1911, at the Camp, Sunningdale , Berkshire. It had been hoped that his ashes would be placed in Westminster Abbey next to Darwin's , but Hooker's wish had been to be buried beside his father in the family grave in the churchyard of Kew Green ,and this desire was honored .

His name is perpetuated in the orchid genera Josephia and Sirhookera as well as in Mormodes hookeri , Oncidium hookeri, Paphiopedilum bookerae, Pleione hookeriana , and Vanda hookeriana .

References

Curtis' Botanical Magazine . 1931.Dedications and Portraits 1827-1927. Nelmes, Ernest ,and Cuthbertson,Wm., comps . London: Bernard Quaritch Ltd.

Gradeners' Chronicle . 1871.Dr. J.D. Hooker ,C.B., F.R.S. No.1.

Gilmour ,John. 1946. British Botanist . London.

Glenn,Rewa. 1950. Botanical Explorers of New Zealand . Wellington.

Lemmon , Kenneth. 1962. The Covered Garden .London: Museum Press Ltd.

Orchid Review ,The . 1912.Vol. 20,no. 229.