Many Victorian garden rhododendrons came from seeds Joseph Hooker gathered in Sikkim
In 1849, botanist Joseph Hooker and a British official were locked up by Sikkim's chief minister while heading for a pass into Tibet. They were freed without violence, and Hooker spent the winter replacing lost specimens. Decades later, many rhododendrons blooming in English gardens were said to descend from seeds he collected there.
Hooker grew up around plants. His father, William Hooker, held Glasgow's chair of botany, and from the age of seven Joseph sat in on his lectures, fascinated by where plants grow and by Cook's voyages. He qualified in medicine in 1839 and at once signed on as assistant surgeon aboard HMS Erebus for James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition, the last great exploring voyage made entirely under sail. He was the youngest of 128 men.
That four-year trip took him from Madeira and St Helena to the Kerguelen Islands, where he recorded 51 algae, 35 mosses and liverworts, 25 lichens and 18 flowering plants, some missed on Cook's visit in 1772. He sketched sea creatures hauled up in tow nets. The expedition returned in September 1843 having confirmed that a southern continent existed and charted much of its coast.
A bruising contest for Edinburgh's botany chair went to a local man in 1845, to Charles Darwin's dismay, so Hooker joined the Geological Survey and hunted fossil plants in Welsh coal, finding the first coal ball in 1855. In November 1847 he set out for India, travelling by elephant, boat and pony to Darjeeling, becoming the first European to collect plants in the Himalaya. He crossed into eastern Nepal, skirting the spurs of Kangchenjunga, and dedicated his Himalayan Journals to Darwin, his closest friend. He married Frances Henslow, daughter of Darwin's old mentor; she translated French botanical texts for him.
For 20 years he directed Kew Gardens, succeeding his father, and he is counted among the founders of plant geography. When he died in his sleep in December 1911, Westminster Abbey offered a grave near Darwin's on condition that he be cremated first. His widow, Hyacinth, refused. He was buried beside his father at St Anne's Church, a short walk from Kew.
Source: Joseph Dalton Hooker
