Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker

Product Description

Sir Joseph Hooker is remembered as an eminent Victorian botanist & one of Charles Darwins closest collaborators. Many gardeners & lovers of rhododendrons know of his plant collecting expedition in the Himalayas, but few are aware of his participation in Sir James Clark Ross epic voyage to Antarctica in 1839-43, of his visits to Syria & Lebanon in 1860, to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco in 1871, & to the Rockies & California in 1877. At some risk to his own safety & health (he came close to drowning in the Antarctic Ocean & was imprisoned by the Rajah of Sikkim), he discovered many new species of plants & introduced a number of attractive flowers into British gardens. When Hooker encountered European species growing in the southern hemisphere he naturally wondered how they got there. He shared his theories on plant distribution & other topics of mutual interest with Darwin to whom he also sent scientific data acquired during his travels. He was a competent surveyor who produced the first map of Sikkim which the British Army used for several decades. He was also an amateur artist who obsessively sketched landscape, flora, & occasionally people & their buildings. A selection of these accomplished drawings are featured in the book which also

Includes:: illustrations by other artists of plants seen or collected by Hooker. Many of them are reproduced in colour. Extracts from his letters home & his published Himalayan Journals testify to his narrative skills, his constant curiosity & careful observation which combined to make him an outstanding scientific traveller.