Excerpt:
Joseph Dalton Hooker was arguably the most important British botanist of the nineteenth century. A traveller and plant-collector, he was one of Charles Darwin’s closest friends and eventually became director of Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
The image on the left shows the house in Halesworth, Suffolk, where Hooker was born in 1817. A plaque (inset) commemorates the fact.
These pages are intended to provide some basic information about Joseph Hooker
Annotation:
Few sites offer much information about Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, the Kew Gardens botanist who worked closely with Charles Darwin while exploring the impact of natural selection on flora. This easily navigated site, produced by a University of Cambridge graduate student, fills this gap to some extent. The thorough biography that includes a brief sketch of Hooker's friendship with Charles Darwin compliments the bibliography of Hooker and links to history of botany sites around the world. Most significantly, the site also points researchers toward archives around the world that host collections relevant to the life and work of Joseph Dalton Hooker. The site does not include primary documents such as the correspondence of or articles written by Hooker.