<p>[[1]]</p><p>Camp </p><p>Fe[bruar]y 23/[18]86</p><p>Dear [Asa] Gray</p><p>I have a horrid cold, & so cannot do better than write to thank you for yours of 8th, & for Synopt[ical]. Flora Suppl[ement]. </p><p>Well, it is good news that you have gone back to Ranunculaceae, you will I hope be able to gallop through the Thalamiflorae.</p><p>I am still on Laurineae, but nearly done. The 1--celled anthered Litsaeaceae I have followed Bentham in bringing under one genus Lindera -- though I feel satisfied that they should make 3 or 4 by habit & inflorescence. The latter is very curious & often difficult to make out. Bentham did not attempt to understand it -- had he attempted it the Gen[era] Plant[arum] would not now be finished! Laurineae is one of those orders that he would have wished me to do, not because I could do it better, but because I have more patience with that sort of analysis that is required & which is necessary, even if I do not make so good a use of it. I did </p><p>[[2]] however suppose that Bentham had done generically the S[outh]. American ones for [Robert] Schomburgk & [Richard] Spruce. You never I think tried your hand at such a job of exotic plants as classifying [1 word crossed out, illeg.] any of these obscure arborescent tropical orders. They are a great strain, but I prefer such work to such jerky work as Bot[anical]. Mag[azine]. But you have your full share of troubles in your own Compositae & other Orders. </p><p>I am now printing Indian Polygonums 70 species!</p><p>By the way I was staggered in looking into your Man[ual]. [of the] Bot[any]. [of the Northern United States] for a Willow[?], to find, p. 461 that you were waiting for Andersson[']s Monograph in D[e].C[andolle]. Prodr[romus] published in 1868, whilst your issue is dated 1880 on the title page but 1868 in the Note at the back of the dedication -- surely this is Hocus--pocus.</p><p>I have received [John Merle] Coulter's Rocky Mt Flora, a curiously unequal book, but I suppose a very serviceable one. What a pity that he gives no elevations & hardly ever distinguishes alpine plants as such. But how do you define an alpine plant? I can't except as Tom defined an </p><p>[[3]] Archdeacon. I asked Ball & he couldn't. </p><p>We are in a fix for a P[resident]. L[innean]. S[ociety]. which [John] Lubbock is about to resign. I know no fit man but [William Thiselton] Dyer. Lubbock & others press me to accept, but I cannot trisect myself. The Camp & Kew are all I can manage -- it tires me so to add London that I shall take no more Society work after this year of the Royal -- besides the frightful loss of time. If Dyer won't take it[,] it must I suppose be [William] Carruthers, who has neither Scientific nor Social position for it, & whose conduct to Bentham, & action in joining a secret conspiracy to overthrow the P[resident]. & Council in the matter of Dyer's election to the Sec[retar]yship, & then putting an utterly unknown & ignorant man into the Secretary's place [1 word crossed out, illeg.] were simply shocking.</p><p>Ball won't take it. He wants to go abroad every year. No one but Dyer could get the new school of Botanists to rally round the Society.</p><p>By the way I have been good 2 hours over D. Jackson's Biog. Biograph[ical] notice of Bentham for the Linnean, which won't do at all -- he can't write English to begin with, & is utterly incompetent even with your & my notices to help him to do it.</p><p>I wrote to Madam Wallon *1 urging her paying up the Legacies to the Linnean & the Relief fund of the Royal, -- she answered asking to buy the portrait "if she could afford it", & making no allusion to</p><p>[[4]] the legacies -- I have sent her a stinger in return & if she does not come down with the money (only about £300 out of her £15000) I shall send her a concluder.</p><p>There is a very fine Botanical Library to be sold that did belong to a friend of mine, a Mr Watson Taylor, an amateur Botanical Artist, whose drawings I thought equalled Bauers. He belonged to a wealthy family -- died some 15 years ago or more & left his Bot[anical]. books to his brother a wealthy swell[?] who wants to part with them. Is there a chance of St Louis buying them? There are 140 works, 345 vols including Boltons Fungi; Bulliard &c & CavanillesIcones; Crantz Stirp[iu]m; De Prodr[omus] XIV vols; Deless[ert] Icones; Grevilles Scot[tish] Crypt[ogamic] Flo[ra]; HBH [Humboldt, Bonpland and Kunth] Plant Equnots[?]; Hook Exot[ic] Fl[ora]; Brit[ish]. Junger[mmani]a Folio Ed[ition]!; Bot[anical] Misc[ellany]; Comp[anion to the] Bot[anical] Mag[azine]; Muscol[ogica] Brit[tanica].; Hort. Gran.; Jacquin Obs[ervationum Botanicarum]; Fl[ora] Austr[iaceae]; Plant[arum] Rar[iorum]; Stapel[iarum]; Miscell[anea]. Austr[iaca].; Collect[anea]; Oxalis; Select[arum] Stirp[ium]; Hort[us]. Bot[anicus]. Vindob[onensis].; Redouté Rosa & Lilia[cées].; R[uiz] &P[avón] Fl[ora] Peru; Scopoli; Sowerby's Fungi; Turner's Fici; Vaillant Fl Dauph; Wallich Pl[antae] As[iaticae]. Rar[iores]; Waldst[ein] & Kit[aibel]; -- all in splendid order I believe, Russia[?] board & gilt.</p><p>The owner a comparative stranger to me does not know what to ask, or I what to advise, but it is a rare chance. What would you say? £500? I think I shall ask Wheldon.</p><p>Ever aff[ectionatel]y y[our]s J.D. Hooker [signature].</p><p>*2 Is Sargent right in styling you one of the "immortal 8" of the French Academy? If so I should have congratulated you. I always thought you should have been chosen before A[lphonse] D[e] C[andolle] a very long way. ENDNOTES</p><p>1. Mary Louisa Wallon, George Bentham's great niece who, on his death, inherited the bulk of his estate.</p><p>2. The text which runs from here until the end of the letter is written vertically up the left margin of page 1.</p><p>Please note that work on this transcript is ongoing. Users are advised to study electronic image(s) of this document where possible.</p>