Notes of a tour in the plains of India, the Himala, and Borneo: being extracts from the private letters of Dr. Hooker, written during a government botanical mission to those countries / [Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker].

  • Hooker, Joseph Dalton, 1817-1911.
Date:
1848-1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes of a tour in the plains of India, the Himala, and Borneo: being extracts from the private letters of Dr. Hooker, written during a government botanical mission to those countries / [Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Palms, a few Agaves, &c. Prom the top, a narrow ridge about 1400 feet high, we obtained a glorious prospect both of the Spanish and African coasts. The descent on the east is a sheer precipice down to the sea, all but perpendicular; and nothing grows, at least at this season, among the confused masses of lime¬ stone, of which it, in common with the rest of the rock, consists. On the west side, by which we ascended, I observed, besides the Agave and Dwarf Fan-Palm, an introduced Aloe, Asparagus, some Labiates, and a pretty species of Arum. The Palmetto, or Dwarf Fan-Palm, was to me the most interesting among this stinted vege¬ tation ; not merely because it is the only European Palm, but because it is the most northern species of the genus, as my old friend, the New Zealand Palmetto, is the most southern species known. Of the Labiates there were several kinds, but none either in flower or fruit. The Phytolacca,* for which I sought particu¬ larly, is not to be seen on the wild parts of the rock, but it grows, apparently cultivated, in the gardens about the town. It forms a very handsome, leafy, rounded and massy looking tree, with a stout trunk, and rather short spreading branches; and appears, specifically, the same as that which I observed in the Island of Ascension, where it grows with such wonderful rapidity. I had seen a solitary Phytolacca at Cintra, but did not then recognize it. To have obtained, as I much wished, a section of the stem, for the Museum at Kew, was impossible: the trees are jealously guarded by soldiers, and in the public gardens it is prohibited to touch and pluck a plant, as with you at Kew. If we had stayed longer at Gibraltar, (but after spending six hours on the rock we returned to the “ Sidon,”) I could easily have procured the Phytolacca from a private garden. Its general aspect reminds me of the * Phytolacca dioica, an arborescent species of Poke-weed, native of Buenos Ayres, but introduced into Europe by the Spaniards and Portuguese. It is remarkable for the softness of its wood. “ II est,” says M. Bory de St. Vincent, “un assez grand et fort bel arbre, dont le tronc cependant conserve une mollesse herbacee, telle qu’on peut le couper comme on ferait d’une enorme Carrotte; il aete des longtems transports et forme a Seville une partie de la promenade publique le long du Guadalquivir, pres le pont de Triana. A la forme des feuilles et a la hauteur de plusieurs individus, on dirait des Peupliers.”—Ed.