[[1]] THE CAMP SUNNINGDALE June 20/[18]86 My dear [Asa] Gray I must write you a few lines, though I really have little to say but thank you for yours of April 29. I am indeed glad that you are in working condition & do grind away at the Flora. I have just completed Laurineae & am utterly dissatisfied with the result. No doubt I have tripped up [Carl] Meissner over & over again but really my work is though fatter so far no better for its period than his was. & the whole has raised old [1 word crossed out, illeg.] Nees [von Esenbeck] a good deal in my estimation. It is at any rate much better than his Acanthaceae. I am now at Euphorbias of which [Pierre Edmond] Boissieu has of course made too many species, chiefly by working at scraps in isolated Herbaria. How could he have expected to find undescribed plants of Heyne[?] in Herb. Viennia[sic], Petersburgh[sic] &c. We have not seen O. M Holmes though [[2]] invited several times to do so. Lastly to the Princess Louises[?] where I suppose he was but not within our vision. His meeting with [Thomas Henry] Huxley was arranged for at the expense of a public dinner which is poison to H[uxley]. who is far from well. Of Botanical news I have none, we are busy with more Icones [Plantarum], with what of Bentham's money has come in -- his affairs are not wound up yet & I am sick of them. They were to have given no trouble to any body! Much he knew! It makes me miss him all the more. I occupy his room at the Herb[ariu]m where I am about 3 days a week. The more I see of [Daniel] Oliver the more I wonder at his marvellous knowledge -- he has[?] far[?] the greatest knowledge of Phaenogams[?] of any two Botanists that ever lived. You cannot puzzle him. [Daniel] Morris is satisfactorily installed at Kew, & seems to take to the secretarial work admirably. [John] Smith is gone, & [[3]] [George] Nicholson takes his House & official place, though the whole tropical cultivation is put under [William] Watson as Ass[istan]t Curator, an excellent arrangement. Our friendly Secretary of the Board of Works, Mitford, is gone, having succeeded to Lord Raedes his Uncle, Lord Redesdale's, property, £30,000 a year & £80,000 in hard cash. -- who will succeed I know not, probably some one of mad [William Ewart] Gladstone's secretaries. I am still busy over the new Edition of Bentham *1 which Reeve prints with his usual dilatoriness -- Also I am getting out a new Edition of the Primer which is the vastest[?] & most profitable of all my undertakings. Everybody seems to like it -- I think the Introduction takes[?]. We are getting a lot of nice things from China, which will come into [William Botting] Hemsley's work. Also African things drop in but the specimens are unsatisfactory. [George] King promises to do the Fig[ure]s for Fl[ora]. Brit[ish]. Ind[ia]. I only hope he may, but promises systematic botanists are [[4]] v[er]y disappointing always except the spry Baker, who would undertake a monog[raph]. of Carex or Pac[?] with a light heart. [William] Carruthers is installed P[resident]. L[innean]. S[ociety]. [2 words crossed out, illeg.] Jackson continues Bot[anica]l Secretary. [James] Murie remaining Prime Minister of the whole as heretofore. I am throwing heaps of India duplicates out of the Herbarium out of double sets especially, Benthamia & Paternal, often quadruples. Do you want any that you can think of? I fear there is nothing that you would care for. -- Wallichs, Cumings[?], Lobbs [James Edward Tierney] Aitchison is working away at his fine Turkestan[sic] & Affghan[sic] collections at the Herb[ariu]m. You will no doubt get a good set. I am keeping Oliver up to setting aside rare odds & ends for you & I hope he does so but I fear not so much as I would like. Often when he asks me to look at a curious thing of which there is more than enough for our Herb[ariu]m I beg him to put a bit aside for you at once. If you happen to hear any thing of a Mr Ashburnham Newman, now of San Francisco, who conducts an agency of some sort I would be glad to hear confidentially -- the man you know who married my Niece Margaret McGilvray. *2 Ever my dear Gray, aff[ectionatel]y y[our]s J.D. Hooker [signature]. No Pension yet which inconveniences me with my bankers more & more deeply. ENDNOTES 1. Refers to a new edition of Bentham's acclaimed Handbook of the British Flora first published in 1858, a 5th edition revised by Hooker appeared in 1887. 2. The text which runs from here until the end of the letter is written vertically up the right margin of page 4. Please note that work on this transcript is ongoing. Users are advised to study electronic image(s) of this document where possible.