[[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.
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