Letter from Jos. D. Hooker [Joseph Dalton Hooker] to George Maw

Information

Scope & content: Written from Royal Gardens, Kew. Manuscript

He would be delighted to reproduce the Saxifraga, of which Fitch [Walter Hood Fitch, botanical artist] has made a superb drawing; it is glorious; he will reproduce Maw’s notes on it as well; they have transplanted theirs to a wall to imitate Maw’s account of its habitat; it was alive and well in the exposed part of the rockwork but did not increase; they have dismantled the rockwork and are doubling it in size and adding a hardy fernery; he went to R. Palgrave’s [Reginald Palgrave, potter, Hooker’s cousin, who designed memorial tablets for Hooker’s father and wife] yesterday and fell in love with a small, pale pink-purple vase [an accompanying sketch of a vase is drawn in the body of the letter] that came from Maw’s works; it was about seven inches high; Maw’s little pots are lovely and he wonders if he could be spared one

Credit Line: Courtesy of David Symonds Hooker / The Descendants of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker / RHS Lindley Collections