From J. D. Hooker [21 July 1863]1
Kew
Tuesday.
Dear Darwin
Your observations on Tendrils &c are most curious & novel, & I am delighted that you are going on with them— you are “facile princeps” of observers.2
I am looking out some climbers that may serve your purpose & hope to send you
Bignonia
Cobæa
Gloriosa
Flagellaria
& perhaps others3
I owe you for 2 letters, & shall pay off soon, havi⟨ng⟩ a lot of gossip for you.4 I am most anxious to get down for a Sunday, & shall do so by the earliest opportunity5 My Father has been a month away, which has kept me very busy,—6 London Society has been worse & really it demands serious consideration.7 I cannot see my way to any mean course between dining out every-where & no where, without a system of prevarication that would be intolerable, & ⟨now⟩ that my Father never goes out I have double duty that way.— I must now get on with the N Z. Flora.8
Black (our Herb Curator)9 is gone away on 6 months leave in very bad health—lungs affected—which throws an immense lot of work on me— happily Thomson is living at Kew & works all day at Herb. for love of the thing.10 he says you should take note that in Cucurb. the tendril is a modified leaf, in Vines a shoot, (i.e. axis of growth.)
I will send Gray’s letter to me tomorrow, he has come in to £2000 by death a relative of wifes.11
Ev yrs aff | J D Hooker
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Chambers: The Chambers dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers. 1998.
Desmond, Ray. 1994. Dictionary of British and Irish botanists and horticulturists including plant collectors, flower painters and garden designers. New edition, revised with the assistance of Christine Ellwood. London: Taylor & Francis and the Natural History Museum. Bristol, Pa.: Taylor & Francis.
DNB: Dictionary of national biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. 63 vols. and 2 supplements (6 vols.). London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1912. Dictionary of national biography 1912–90. Edited by H. W. C. Davis et al. 9 vols. London: Oxford University Press. 1927–96.
Hooker, Joseph Dalton. 1864–7. Handbook of the New Zealand flora: a systematic description of the native plants of New Zealand and the Chatham, Kermadec’s, Lord Auckland’s, Campbell’s, and MacQuarrie’s Islands. 2 vols. London: Lovell Reeve & Co.
Summary
Encourages CD to continue observations on tendrils.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4225
- From
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Kew
- Source of text
- DAR 101: 152–3
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4225,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4225.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 11
