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botanist who travelled to the Antarctic and India, and made many botanical
discoveries. His works include Flora Antarctica 1844-47, Genera plantarum
1862-83, and Flora of British India 1875-97. In 1865 he succeeded his father, William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865), as director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London. Hooker was born in Halesworth, Suffolk, and studied medicine at Glasgow. He joined an expedition to locate the magnetic South Pole 1839-43; places visited included the Falkland Islands, Tasmania, and New Zealand. From 1847 to 1850 he undertook a botanical exploration of NE India and the Himalayas, and sent back to England many previously unknown species of rhododendron. From 1855 he worked at Kew. Under his directorship, the Index Kewensis was founded 1883; this is a list of all scientific plant names, accompanied by descriptions. |