Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton 1817-1911
English botanist

Born in Halesworth, Suffolk, he was the second child of Sir William Jackson Hooker, and educated at Glasgow University, where he studied medicine. His first post was as assistant surgeon and naturalist on HMS Erebus in the Southern Ocean, and led to the six-volume The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage, comprising Flora Antarctica (1844-47), Flora Novae-Zelandiae (1853-55) and Flora Tasmaniae (1855-60). In 1846 he was appointed to the Geological Survey and in 1855 became assistant director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Between 1848 and 1851 he explored Sikkim, Darjeeling, eastern Nepal and Assam, introducing many species to cultivation. His monumental Genera Plantarum (3 vols, 1862-83), formed the basis of a new classification system still used, with modifications, at Kew and elsewhere. His Flora of British India (7 vols, 1872-97) remains the standard Flora for the whole Indian subcontinent. On becoming director of Kew in 1865, Hooker instigated the compilation of a list of all scientific names of flowering plants, Index Kewensis (1892), which continues to be compiled today. President of the Royal Society from 1872 to 1877, he was knighted in 1877 and received the Order of Merit in 1907.

Bibliography: Mea Allen, The Hookers of Kew 1785-1911 (1967)