Letter from Jos. D. Hooker [Joseph Dalton Hooker] to George Maw
Information
Title
Letter from Jos. D. Hooker [Joseph Dalton Hooker] to George Maw
Record type
Archive
Original Reference
MAW/1/217
Date
17 Dec 1882
Scope & content
Written from Royal Gardens, Kew. Manuscript
The seeds were from Yarkand [China] and quite fresh and good; there should have been a notice of this with them, but they have been disorganised through Smith’s [John Smith, curator at Kew] illness; Smith’s heart gave way under the stress of his daughter’s death from kidney disease, and he is weak and ill, and Hooker despairs about all the work to be done in the gardens; he has been nowhere this autumn except for one Sunday outing, as he is hard at work on ‘Genera Plantarum’ and ‘The Flora of British India’; his part of ‘Genera Plantarum’ [written in collaboration with George Bentham] is done and the end of the work is in sight; the last part should appear in February; they approve of both types of tally; Maw’s Crocus map will be an instructive addition; on Friday they go to spend Christmas week with their friends the Hodgsons at Wotton-under-Edge; Harpur Crewe [Henry Harpur Crewe, rector of Drayton Beauchamp, Buckinghamshire] is very ill, but writes that Hyacinthus fastigiatus [Brimeura fastigiata] is not fastigiatus but pouzolzii, and that Maw says they differ; if Maw’s Hyacinthus fastigiatus flowers, he asks him to let him know so that he can figure it