Plant Science Bulletin 58(3) 2012 EDUCATION
Joseph Hooker: Botanical Trailblazer Pat Griggs 2012. ISBN-13: 978-1-84246-469-4 Paperback, US$17.00. 64 pp. Kew Publishing, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Distributed by University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, USA This slim, exquisitely illustrated volume seems to satisfy a noble goal, to popularize botany. Appealing to a wide audience—readers interested in biography, botanical illustration, botanical and herbarium history, or adventurous colonial-era travel and exploration—this would seem to be an elegant souvenir of a visit to the world-renowned Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The subject, Joseph Hooker (1817–1911), is substantial. He turned his humble employment, requiring world travels (i.e., achieved without a wealthy sponsor), into plant collecting expeditions, first to Antarctica and later to India and the Himalayas. A pioneering practicing botanist— even before the term “scientist” was coined, as the book’s Introduction by Jim Endersby points out— his “early travels left him with a lifelong fascination with the geographical distribution of plants” [p. 10]. Hooker identified, described, or introduced over 12,000 plant species. His publications assured his reputation among his peers and as a 40-yearlong confidante of Charles Darwin, ensured his pedigree. Joseph Hooker became Assistant Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in 1855; in 1865, Hooker followed his father Sir William Hooker as the director of Kew. He completed an expedition to the western United States with America’s foremost botanist, Asa Gray, in 1877, bringing back 1000 new specimens. Botanists involved with writing regional floras or genus revisions will celebrate Hooker’s persistent goal: increasing Kew’s collections is pervasive, throughout this book. Some of Hooker’s other travels included journeys to Morocco, Palestine, and Syria. Sir William Hooker established Kew’s Economic Botany collection, comprising 85,000 items; his son Joseph collected many during those collecting trips.
Author Pat Griggs, Kew’s science writer, prepared the book in conjunction with an exhibition about Joseph Hooker at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She writes that young Joseph Hooker used to sit in on his father’s lectures and tag along on field trips. All he wanted to do with his life was to study plants. However, recognizing that professionals in the other sciences did not think much of botany, Joseph became a doctor and used this title (and his father’s contacts) to secure a place on an expedition to the Antarctic. Hooker requested an appointment as the ship’s botanist, and the expedition commander granted Hooker this “meaningless title.” This book lavishly illustrates the critical role that drawing has played in our understanding of plants and nature. Griggs does readers a service, presenting Hooker’s pencil sketches alongside his watercolor paintings and the paintings by Hooker’s talented collaborator, Walter Hood Fitch. Fitch, a botanical artist and lithographer, was also the illustrator for Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. The paintings and lithographs Fitch created for Hooker were based on Hooker’s field drawings. Excerpts from Joseph Hooker’s field journal and personal letters are also included in the book, and they offer a limited glimpse at the extensive notes and copious illustrations he must have created during his lifetime. Hooker’s own plant studies, in pencil sketches and watercolors, are dynamic, with dissected plant parts that lead one to contemplate how each species is constructed. A list of references includes links to websites where readers can view digitized copies of Hooker’s books and field notes dating from 1849– 1878. Along with the historical text and botanical images in the book, Griggs provides an informative timeline of significant events in Joseph Hooker’s life. Prediction: peruse this tribute to Joseph Hooker, and you’ll get “hooked” on plants! –Dorothea Bedigian, Research Associate, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
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