PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER1 “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY 1. Disambiguation: This is not the William Hooker who was producing, in 1833, a NEW POCKET PLAN OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. HDT WHAT? INDEX WILLIAM J. HOOKER PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER 1785 July 6, Wednesday: William Jackson Hooker was born in Norwich, a son of Joseph Hooker of Exeter. After being educated at the high school of Norwich his status as an independent educated gentleman of means would enable him to travel and to take up as a recreation the study of ornithology and entomology. On the recommendation of Sir James Edward Smith (whom he consulted respecting a rare moss), he would soon come to specialize in botany. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT William J. Hooker “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER WILLIAM J. HOOKER 1809 Summer: William Jackson Hooker initial botanical expedition, at the suggestion of Sir Joseph Banks, was to Iceland (the specimens he collected, and all notes and drawings, were destroyed by fire during a homeward voyage in which he came close in addition to losing his life). NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William J. Hooker HDT WHAT? INDEX WILLIAM J. HOOKER PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER 1810 In London, the East India Dock Road and West India Dock Road opened (trade with India was becoming a real big deal). During this year and the following one William Jackson Hooker was making extensive preparations, and sacrifices which would prove financially serious, to be ready to accompany General Sir Robert Brownrigg, 1st Baronet GCB to the Ceylon crown colony of England — but then due to political upheaval this project became impossible. A volume we will find being bequeathed by Henry Thoreau to Waldo Emerson in 1862 was in this year being printed by A.H. Hubbard at the Hindoostanee Press in Calcutta, TWO TREATISES ON THE HINDU LAW OF INHERITANCE [Comprising the Translation of the Dáyabhága of Jīmūtavāhana and that of the section of the Mitáksharáj by Vijñāneśvara on Inheritance]. TRANSLATED BY H.T. COLEBROOKE, ESQUIRE. HINDU INHERITANCE LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William J. Hooker HDT WHAT? INDEX PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER WILLIAM J. HOOKER 1811 William Jackson Hooker reconstructed as much of his material from his summer in Iceland, from memory, and privately circulated it as TOUR IN ICELAND, 1809. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William J. Hooker HDT WHAT? INDEX WILLIAM J. HOOKER PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER 1813 William Jackson Hooker issued a reprint of his TOUR IN ICELAND, 1809. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William J. Hooker HDT WHAT? INDEX PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER WILLIAM J. HOOKER 1814 William Jackson Hooker went on a 9-month botanizing excursion to France, Switzerland, and northern Italy. BOTANIZING John Lyon died of typhoid fever in America. He collected 3,600 plants of Magnolia macrophylla at one time. “His attitude was commercial; in all his journals he never expresses pleasure in a plant, but he almost invariably notes the mileage covered and the cost of the journey. Many of his so-called first introductions are due to others.” Fraser and Lyon overlapped with Pieris floribunda, Jeffersonia diphylla, Oenothera tetragona fraseri, and several other plants. Lyon’s new ones included Chelone lyoni, Dicentra eximia, and Iris fulva. BOTANIZING WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF William J. Hooker “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX WILLIAM J. HOOKER PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER 1815 William Jackson Hooker got married with Maria Dawson Turner, eldest daughter of Dawson Turner, banker, of Great Yarmouth, and sister-in-law of Francis Palgrave. Settling at Halesworth, Suffolk, he would devote himself to the formation of his excellent herbarium. He became a corresponding member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. THE SCIENCE OF 1815 Samuel Constantine Rafinesque returned to the USA despite loss in a shipwreck of numerous of his botanical manuscripts and collections. BOTANIZING CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT William J. Hooker “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER WILLIAM J. HOOKER 1816 William Jackson Hooker’s BRITISH JUNGERMANNIAE, his initial scientific monograph. The 2d edition of Friedrich Traugott Pursch (Frederick Pursh)’s FLORA AMERICAE SEPTENTRIONALIS. BOTANIZING HDT WHAT? INDEX WILLIAM J. HOOKER PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER 1817 William Jackson Hooker’s description of the PLANTAE CRYPTOGAMICAE of Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland. From this year into 1828, his new edition of William Curtis’s FLORA LONDINENSIS for which he provided the plant descriptions. John Bradbury returned to England to prepare to publish at his own expense his TRAVELS IN THE INTERIOR OF AMERICA, 1809, 1810, & 1811; INCLUDING A DESCRIPTION OF UPPER LOUISIANA..., after which he would bring his family with him to America and become Director of the Botanic Garden at St. Louis. Thomas Nuttall received credit for the introduction of a number of species which, almost certainly, were also introduced by the neglected Bradbury: Oenothera missouriensis, Ribes aureumand, Shepherdia argentea. Nuttall’s plants included Camassia fraseri, Lepachys (Rudbeckia) columnaris, Mentzelia decapetala, Oenothera caepitosa, Oenothera nuttalli, and Penstemon glaber. BOTANIZING DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. William J. Hooker “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER WILLIAM J. HOOKER 1818 William Jackson Hooker’s MUSCOLOGIA, a very complete account of the mosses of Britain and Ireland prepared in conjunction with Professor Thomas Taylor. The initial of the two volumes of his MUSCI EXOTICI, devoted to new foreign mosses and other cryptogamic plants. Dr. William P.C. Barton, nephew of Benjamin Smith Barton, published a compendium of Philadelphia plants. BOTANIZING HDT WHAT? INDEX WILLIAM J. HOOKER PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER 1820 The botanist Frederick Pursh died at the age of 46. The final of the two volumes of William Jackson Hooker’s MUSCI EXOTICI, devoted to new foreign mosses and other cryptogamic plants. With the help of Banks, he became Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Glasgow. BOTANIZING HDT WHAT? INDEX PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER WILLIAM J. HOOKER With the death of Joseph Banks, there was a real possibility that the rare plants at Kew would be dispersed among other private gardens. Professor Hooker led a campaign to transform Kew into a national treasure. HDT WHAT? INDEX WILLIAM J. HOOKER PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER 1821 Professor William Jackson Hooker brought out FLORA SCOTICA, in which the natural method of arrangement of British plants was given with the artificial. He worked in Scotland with the Glasgow botanist and lithographer Thomas Hopkirk to establish the Royal Botanic Institution of Glasgow and to lay out and develop the Glasgow Botanic Gardens. Mary Macpherson [Mairi “Mairi Mhor nan Oran” nic-a-Phearsain] was born in Skye. George John Whyte-Melville was born in Strathkinness. The Annals of the Parish, Galt. The Ayrshire Legatees, Galt. HDT WHAT? INDEX PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER WILLIAM J. HOOKER 1822 From this year into 1827, the three volumes of Professor Sir William Jackson Hooker’s EXOTIC FLORA, INDICATING SUCH OF THE SPECIMENS AS ARE DESERVING CULTIVATION. From this year into 1834, Thomas Nuttall would be in charge of Harvard College’s botanic garden. The slender fuchsia was introduced from Chile.2 2. Charles Plumier had published the first description of fuschia in 1703 after finding the plant on Santo Domingo in the Caribbean. The scarlet fuchsia had been introduced from Chile in 1788 and the tree fuchsia would be introduced from Mexico in 1823. HDT WHAT? INDEX WILLIAM J. HOOKER PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER 1824 Professor William Jackson Hooker’s ACCOUNT OF SABINE’S ARCTIC PLANTS. Publication of an enlarged edition of Dr. Jacob Bigelow’s 1814 FLORULA BOSTONIENSIS, A COLLECTION OF PLANTS OF BOSTON AND ITS VICINITY. (A further enlarged edition of this localized botanical sourcebook would appear in 1840. Henry Thoreau would make extensive use of it.) FLORULA BOSTONIENSIS May 29: It is evident that the virtues of plants are almost completely unknown to us– And we esteem the few with which we are better acquainted unreasonably above the many which are comparatively unknown BIGELOW to us. Bigelow says –“It is a subject of some curiosity to consider, if the knowledge of the present Materia Medica were by any means to be lost, how many of the same articles would again rise into notice and use. Doubtless a variety of new substances would develop unexpected powers, while perhaps the poppy would be shunned as a deleterious plant, and the cinchona might grow unmolested upon the mountains of Quito.” ... He GINSENG says Ginseng, Spigelia, Snake-root, &c. form considerable articles of exportation.... At one time the Indians above Quebec & Montreal were so taken up with searching for Ginseng that they could not be hired for any other purpose. It is said that both the Chinese & the Indians named this plant from its resemblance to the figure of a man HDT WHAT? INDEX PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER WILLIAM J. HOOKER 1825 Professor William Jackson Hooker’s CATALOGUE OF PLANTS IN THE GLASGOW BOTANIC GARDEN. John Halkett, Esq.’s HISTORICAL NOTES RESPECTING THE INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA: WITH REMARKS ON THE ATTEMPTS MADE TO CONVERT AND CIVILIZE THEM (London: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co.