He came, He saw, and He collected!

Photo credits: www.amazon.com & www.astralint.com Memory tags:

Welcome to the world of a famous plant collector and botanist! To the student of botany, I bring you Hooker of Hooker and Bentham. This is a bird’s eye view of his visit to India and especially the East Khasi Hills. In the pages of his book, “The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya” ,Joseph Dalton Hooker came alive to me as he had never done in the Botany classes! On a visit to the BNHS Library in Bombay, I was spellbound that I had in my hands, a book published in 1855, with full A4 page size drawings, glowing with the colors that rhododendron trees bore  in our East Khasi Hills!

JD Hooker, finally secured an annual commission of £400 and a directive to catalogue plants for Kew by exploring the northern regions of India left England on November 11, 1847. In today’s parlance, his TA/DA was borne by the Admiralty or British Navy. He  thus traveled  with the Marquis of Dalhousie, the  new Governor General of India  on H.M.Sidon  as far as Egypt. Dalhousie then invited Hooker to continue traveling with him, on the Indian Navy steam frigate, “Moozafer” to India. Sailing up the Hoogly, past the Botanic Gardens and into the booming batteries of Fort William, he had a tumultuous welcome designed for the Governor General of India!  Arriving in Calcutta after a two month journey, he used the January cold weather exploring the vegetation of Western Bengal. His Himalayan Journal mentions his visits to  the Raja of Burdawan’s gardens, Parasnath mountains, hotsprings of Suraj kund,  poppy fields of Bihar and Central India, Shahgunj, Mirzapore, Sarnath,   Patna, Monghyr, hotsprings of Sitakund, Bhagalpore, Siliguri, Darjeeling ....the Indian saga continued

In the autumn of 1848, he ventured into Eastern Nepal with a 56 member party that carried all provisions, including papers to dry plants and scientific instruments!  With difficulty, some permission for passage through  Sikkim was allowed. Hooker  and his companion Dr. Campbell were expressly told not  cross the northern border into Tibet.  The Rajah used their violation of this order as an excuse to have them arrested in November 1849.  They were held hostage for two weeks and finally released on threats of invasion. As a punitive measure some parts of Sikkim were annexed and the Rajah’s British pension withdrawn! Strange are the excuses for colonization.

On the first of June 1850, Hooker first saw the ‘Khasia Mountains’ ; a  4000 to 5000 ft high Plateau, running east and west rising abruptly from his vantage point in Chattak( now in  Bangladesh). Through this point flowed trade in oranges, potatoes, coal, lime and timber to Calcutta. As he climbed to  Churra ( Cherrapunji), he was struck by the distinctly Malayan character of the vegetation. The cultivated betel nut raising its feathery crown and graceful stem, was to him  like an arrow shot down from heaven ! Nothing in his experience prepared him for the breathtaking beauty of the  cascades of the water falling down the emerald green gorges, 2000 ft below. His journal records visits to Lailangkot, Moflong, Myrung, Chillong Hill,( Shillong !), Nunklow, Jantia Hills, Nongkrem, Jowai and Nartiang. Having spent nearly 6 months in what is now Meghalaya, they had collected more than 2,500 species that required 200 men to carry them! They proceeded to Silchar by boats then back to Chattak. Then onto Chittagong, before returning to Calcutta, to sail from India.

Hooker’s visit to India resulted in a chache of 7,000 species. These he managed to classify with another government grant. Their not so pleasant Sikkim adventure added another 25 species to the already catalogued 50 species of Rhododendrons. These rhododendrons were collected and transported by Joseph Dalton Hooker, were planted in the Kew Gardens the early 1850s.Come May and the spectacular Rhododendron Dell in Kew Gardens containing over 700 specimen will be in full bloom !

Main references:

1. JD Hooker, “Himalayan Journal”. Published by Today and Tomorrow’s Printers and Publishers, New Delhi, 1999.
2. JD Hooker, “The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya” at the BNHS library, - 1855 edition if my memory serves me right.https://www.kew.org