[[1]]
ROYAL GARDENS KEW
October, 7 [18]76
My dear friend [Asa Gray],
We have just returned to Kew & my first letter abroad must be to you. Thanking you
and your dear wife warmly for your congratulations. Our married tour was first to
N[orth] Wales where my wife distinguished herself by ascending Cader Edrys [Cadair
Idris] in the afternoon & descending in the dark walking some 15 miles, & afterwards
by ascending Snowdon in a storm such as I have not seen in mountains since I left
the Himalaya, & where after seeing nothing, & having the top of an umbrella
incautiously raised blown in, we descended soaked through & through. Thence to
the B[otanical?] A[ssociation?] at Glasgow where we staid[sic] with my niece Mrs
Campbell, now a mother of 6 bonny children, & living in great comfort. She is quite
unchanged. Bentham staid[sic] there with us which
[[2]] made it all the more enjoyable.
After a short tour to the Clyde & visits to my old haunts there & on Loch Lomond &
Inveray [Inveraray] we went to Inveray Loch Awe by Crinan & so by the foot of Ben
Cruachan to Oban. There to Skye where we had glorious weather! & over to the Gari
Loch [Gairloch], Loch Maree, & Dingwall & on South by Inverness & Forres to
Rothiemurchus where we staid[sic] with some old Indian friends of mine. There to
Stirling & Bridge of Allan where Mrs McGilvray*1 has a house. She is as well as ever
now & very stout, but the Rev. Dr. [Walter McGilvray] is in wretched health suffering
from Heart Disease.
Then to my old friend [Brian Houghton] Hodgson in Gloucestershire & another visit in
Worcestershire & so home & very glad to get here where we received a warm
welcome from the boys. Harriet was visiting at the Hodgsons['] & so we had seen her
there -- she will
[[3]] soon be back here.
In the midst of our mountaineering & scrambling I got yours of 23rd Aug[ust]; -- telling
us of your kind thought of us on the 22? & setting us wondering whether Mrs. Gray
would get up the mountains, & whether you or I would walk farthest. I long to know if
Mrs Gray got up. Mrs. H[ooker] is a regular bog trotter, & did her 10 hours of most
laborious bog bog in Skye without a complaint, & afterward[s] a good 25 miles of
tramp to X [church] amongst the Cuchillins [Cuillin], ascending also about 2000 f[ee]t
over Loch Coruisk. She knows plants pretty well & is an enthusiast in gardening (not
pattern beds but of good plants) -- Indeed my dear Gray I have reason to be thankful
for a most amiable wife well suited to my condition & who promises to make a happy
step--mother to my children.
Thanks for the Rejoinder -- you are not quite right yet. Tripetaleia is not a parallel
[[4]] case to your Tuckermannia Gray Nutt applies to the plants which Nuttall [text
crossed out, illeg] himself first described, it is a clear blunder, it should have been
Tuckermannia Nutt. You might have put it "[text crossed out, illeg.] paragraph 2
Tuckermannia Gray" & cited Nuttal for making it a genus.
Olvey[?] has not turned up -- Thanks for Abies fraseri cones .-- What sort of soil
should it have? We find great difficulty with it.
I have now to begin my anniversary address for Royal*2, which will be concerned
chiefly with the labour of the Council council during the last session of which the
Society hears little or nothing except by at the address.
Thanks for the cheque for £5.00 for Gay’s plants. The letter that you sent with it has
been mislaid. I hope that it requires no answer.
Yours affectionately | Jos[eph] D[alton] Hooker [signature].
N.B. I did not refer to the citation of Tuckermannia at line 9 of page 356 but under
paragraph 2.
ENDNOTES
1. Maria McGilvray née Hooker (1819--1889). Joseph Hooker's younger sister.
Married Walter McGilvray (1807--1880) in 1846.
2. This refers to the Anniversary address given annually by the President of the
Royal Society, of which Joseph Dalton Hooker was elected a fellow at the age of
thirty and served as President from 1873--1878.
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