Annotated Bibliography

Anon. (1844)

‘Review of Hooker’s Flora Antarctica’. (Gardener’s Chronicle July 6th): 446–447.

[Bell], T. (1857)

‘Review of JD Hooker’s Botany of the Antarctic Voyage, Part II: Flora Novae-Zelandiae’. (Athenaeum 1530): 242–3

[Bentham], G. (1856)

‘Review of De Candolle’s Geographical Botany and other works’. (Edinburgh Review or Critical Journal CIV 212): 490–518

Notes that geographical botany is a relatively new study and that it had only recently become scientific thanks to the work of Charles Lyell and Edward Forbes. However, Bentham argues that the parlous state of systematic botany (classification) made it hard for progress to be made: "Systematic botany, which it has been the fashion of late years to hold in so much contempt, is nevertheless the groundwork upon which the correctness of the speculation of the physiologist and geographical botanist must mainly depend". Nevertheless. he singles out Hooker and Thomson’s Flora Indica (1855) as an example of how botany must be done in order to progress in the future.

[Forbes], E. (1852)

‘Plants and Botanists (reviews of Lindley’s Vegetable Kingdom and other books)’. (Westminster Review 58 2): 385–98

Edward Forbes, writing anonymously, described his friend as "Dr. Joseph Hooker, a young, indefatigable, enthusiastic, truthful, and thoroughly-trained botanist. As the son of Sir William Hooker, the illustrious director of our national gardens at Kew, his studies were pursued under all possible advantages. The instruction and advice of his father, the constant association with all the ablest botanists of our time, and the inappreciable facilities afforded by a library and herbarium of pre-eminent completeness, were not thrown away upon this young botanist, who, if we are not greatly mistaken, will hereafter occupy a foremost place in the ranks of his chosen science".

Forbes' review stresses Hooker’s achievements as a way of pressing the case for better government funding for the sciences.

Gray, A. (1854)

‘Notice of Dr. Hooker’s Flora of New Zealand’. (American Journal of Science and Arts XVII (Second Series) 50): 241–52, 334–50

Houghton, W. (1865)

‘Natural History of the Tropics: reviews of Wallace’s Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and other works’. (The Quarterly Review 118 235): 166–93

Includes Hooker’s Himalayan Journals (1854)

[Lankester], E. (1845)

‘Review of JD Hooker’s Botany of the Antarctic Voyage’. (Athenaeum 906): 241

[Lankester], E. (1849)

‘Review of Part I of JD Hooker’s Rhododendrons of the Sikkim Himalaya’. (Athenaeum 1122): 431

[Lankester], E. (1851)

‘Review of Part II of JD Hooker’s Rhododendrons of the Sikkim Himalaya’. (Athenaeum 1235): 678–9

[Luxford], G. (1849)

‘Botany. Reviews of various works, including JD Hooker’s Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya’. (Westminster Review LI 2): 356–89

[Owen], R. (1860)

‘Review: ‘On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection’ and other works’. (The Edinburgh Review CXI 226 (April)): 487–532

Owen’s well-known attack on Darwin’s Origin also included a savaging of Hooker, who Owen described as "One of the disciples" oif Darwin and "as short-sighted as the master". He claimed that Hooker, like other supporters of transmutation (evolution) was guilty of simply shouting down anyone who disagreed with them, by asserting that their opponents must necessarily believe in special creation. Owen asked rhetorically if they wanted to monopolise the field with their "barren speculation, and to allow no indulgence in any mere hypothesis save their own?"

Ross, J. C. (1847)

A voyage of discovery and research in the southern and Antarctic regions during the years 1839–43. (London, John Murray)

Hooker, J. D. (1847)

Flora Antarctica (Botany of the Antarctic voyage: volume 1). (London, Reeve Brothers)

The introductory essay includes some of Hooker’s earliest sustained reflections on plant geography.

Hooker, J. D. (1851)

‘On the vegetation of the Galapagos Archipelago, as compared with that of some other tropical islands and of the Continent of America’. (Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 20: 235–62

Soon after Hooker returned from the Erebus voyage (see biography for details), Charles Darwin wrote to congratulate him and ask if Hooker would consider classifying the Galapagos plants he had collected on the Beagle. The resulting paper was read to the Linnean Society in 1846 and eventually published in the Transactions of the Linnean Society of London. The full-text is now on-line at this site.

Hooker, J. D. (1853)

Flora Novae-Zelandiae (Botany of the Antarctic voyage: volume 2). (London, Lovell Reeve)

The preface is now on-line at this site. The introductory essay substantially extends the ideas that Hooker put forward in the Flora Antarctica, and includes a lengthy discussion of species. Although Hooker was already well-aware of Darwin’s theory of natural selection at this time, he assumes that, for taxonomic purposes at least, species must still be treated as unchanging. Although he’s careful to say that: "I wish it to be distinctly understood that I do not put this forward intending it to be interpreted into an avowal of the adoption of a fixed and unalterable opinion on my part".

Hooker, J. D. (1854)

‘Obituary of Edward Forbes’. (Gardener’s Chronicle 48, 2 December): 771–772

Hooker, J. D. (1856)

‘Notice of Alphonse de Candolle’s Géographie Botanique Raisonée’. (Hooker’s Kew Journal of Botany 8: 54–64, 82–8, 112–21,51–57, 81–91, 214–9, 48–56

An essay-length review of one of the most important works on geographical botany that appeared in the mid-nineteenth century. Includes a lengthy discussion of transmutation (evolution), which de Candolle opposed in his book. However, Hooker felt there were arguments in its favour that de Candolle didn't discuss and he gives them in considerable detail, nevertheless he concluded:

"We have thus endeavoured to put the argument in favour of transmutation in as strong a light as we believe it to be capable of bearing in the existing state of our knowledge. For our part we confess that we see no more means of forming an opinion on the subject of the origin of species, than we do of the origin of time; whether they are all suffering transmutation or not, appears to be immaterial as regards the progress of botanical science; on the one hand we cannot treat practically of the species of plants, either systematically or physiologically, save under the assumption that most are hereditarily permanently distinct." (p. 256).

My view is that Hooker was not anti-transmutaion, he just thought that the practicalities of classification had to take precedence over speculative issues.

Hooker, J. D. (1859)

Flora Tasmaniae (Botany of the Antarctic voyage: volume 3). (London, Lovell Reeve)

The introductory essay (which appeared in December 1859, just a month after Darwin’s Origin) was where Hooker announced his support for the ‘ingenious and original reasonings and theories by Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace’. He thus became the first major British man of science to openly support natural selection. However, a close reading of this essay (arguably his most important) suggests continuing tensions over the impact that natural selection might have on taxonomy, which remained Hooker’s central preoccupation.

Hooker, J.D. (1859 (1973))

‘Review of the Origin of Species’. In Hull (1973): 81–6

Hooker, J. D. (1862)

‘Outlines of the distribution of Arctic Plants’. (Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 23: 251–348

Hooker, J. D. (1867 (1984))

‘Insular Floras’. (Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 22: 55–77

Hooker, J. D. (1870, 1878)

The Student’s Flora of the British Islands. (London, Macmillan)

Hooker, J. D. (1893)

Himalayan Journals, or Notes of a Naturalist. (London, Ward, Lock & Bowden Limited)

Hooker, J. D. and T. Thomson (1855)

Introductory essay to the Flora Indica. (London, W. Pamplin)

Although credited to Hooker and Thomson, this was almost entirely written by Hooker and (with the possible exception of the introduction to the Flora Tasmaniae), is his most detailed commentary on species, taxonomy and plant distribution. Hard to find (only 250 were printed), but extremely important.

Baulch, W. (1961)

‘Ronald Campbell Gunn’. In Burns & Skemp (1961): xiii–xix

Brief biography of Hooker’s most important Tasmanian collector.

Burns, T. and J. Skemp (1961), (eds.)

Van Diemen’s Land Correspondents: Letters from RC Gunn, RW Lawrence, Jorgen Jorgenson, Sir John Franklin and others to Sir William J Hooker, 1827–1849. (Launceston, Queen Victoria Museum, 1961)

Excellent transcription of many of the letters from Tasmanian collectors in the archives at Kew. Most of these are to William Hooker, but they are nevertheless very useful.

Ducker, S. C. (1988)

The Contented Botanist: Letters of W.H. Harvey about Australia and the Pacific. (Melbourne, Melbourne University Press)

Harvey was a close friend of Hooker’s and an expert on algae. These letters were all written during a visit to Australia.

Endersby, J. (forthcoming)

‘“From having no Herbarium.” Local knowledge vs. metropolitan expertise: Joseph Hooker’s Australasian correspondence with William Colenso and Ronald Gunn’. (Pacific Science)

My own first attempt to assess the relationship between Hooker and his collectors, focussed on the importance of the herbarium as both a practical resource and a marker of status.

Glenn, R. (1950)

The Botanical Explorers of New Zealand. (Wellington, A.H. & A.W. Reed)

Now out-of-print and somewhat dated, but a useful source for several of Hooker’s New Zealand contacts.

Yaldwyn, J. and J. Hobbs (1998), (eds.)

My Dear Hector: Letters from Joseph Dalton Hooker to James Hector 1862–1893. (Wellington, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 1998)

Invaluable transcript of all the surviving letters. While Hector was not a botanist, the letters often mention botany and Hooker’s colonial collectors.