Botany of Fuegia, the Falklands, Kerguelen's Land, Etc.

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Botany of Fuegia, the Falklands, Kerguelen's Land, Etc.
AuthorJoseph Dalton Hooker
IllustratorWalter Hood Fitch
CountryEngland
LanguageEnglish
SeriesMonthly parts
SubjectBotany
PublisherReeve Brothers
Publication date
1845 – 1847

The Botany of Fuegia, the Falklands, Kerguelen's Land, Etc. is a description of the plants discovered in these islands during the Ross expedition written by Joseph Dalton Hooker and published by Reeve Brothers in London between 1845 and 1847.[1] Hooker sailed on HMS Erebus as assistant surgeon.[2] It was the second in a series of four Floras in the Flora Antarctica, the others being the Flora of Lord Auckland and Campbell's Islands (1843-1845), the Flora Novae-Zelandiae (1851–1853), and the Flora Tasmaniae (1853–1859). They were "splendidly" illustrated by Walter Hood Fitch.[3]

The larger part of the plant specimens collected during the Ross expedition are now part of the Kew Herbarium.[4]

Context[edit]

Main articles: Ross expedition and Flora Antarctica

The British government fitted out an expedition led by James Clark Ross to investigate magnetism and marine geography in high southern latitudes, which sailed with two ships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus on 29 September 1839 from Chatham.[5]

The ships arrived, after several stops, at the Cape of Good Hope on 4 April 1840. On 21 April the giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera was found off Marion Island, but no landfall could be made there or on the Crozet Islands due to the harsh winds. On 12 May the ships anchored at Christmas Harbour for two and a half months, during which all the plant species previously encountered by James Cook on the Kerguelen Islands were collected. On 16 August they reached the River Derwent, remaining in Tasmania until 12 November. A week later the flotilla stopped at Lord Auckland's Islands and Campbell's Island for the spring months.[5]

Large floating forests of Macrocystis and Durvillaea were found until the ships ran into icebergs at latitude 61° S. Pack-ice was met at 68° S and longitude 175°. During this part of the voyage Victoria Land, Mount Erebus and Mount Terror were discovered. After returning to Tasmania for three months, the flotilla went via Sydney to the Bay of Islands, and stayed for three months in New Zealand to collect plants there. After visiting other islands, the ships returned to the Cape of Good Hope on 4 April 1843. At the end of the journey specimens of some fifteen hundred plant species had been collected and preserved.[5]

Distinct flora[edit]

According to Hooker, the flora of New Zealand's Antarctic islands is so different from that of the remainder of the territories visited during the voyage, that it merits a separate description. An exemplary difference is the dominance of Asteraceae in New Zealand's islands, and absence of representatives of the Rubiaceae, while the reverse is true for those two plant families on the other Antarctic archipelagos. So the Flora Antarctica describes in its second part the plants of Tierra del Fuego and the south-western coast of Patagonia, the Falkland Islands, Palmer's Land, South Shetlands, South Georgia, Tristan da Cunha, and Kerguelen's Land.[6]

Species[edit]

Hooker collected the following plants from the lands named in the book's title.

Seedplants[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Joseph Dalton Hooker (1844). Flora Antarctica, Volume 1, Parts 1-2, Flora Novae-Zelandiae - The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships Erebus and Terror in the years 1839-1843. London: Reeve Brothers. pp. title pages.
  2. ^ "The Erebus voyage". Kew Royal Botanic Gardens. Archived from the original on 2015-11-23. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
  3. ^ Curtis, Winifred M. (1972). "Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton (1817-1911)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 4. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISSN 1833-7538.
  4. ^ David Goyder; Pat Griggs; Mark Nesbitt; Lynn Parker; Kiri Ross-Jones (2012). "Sir Joseph Hooker's Collections at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" (PDF). Curtis's Botanical Magazine. 29 (1): 66–85. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-06-08. Retrieved 2016-02-29.
  5. ^ a b c Joseph Dalton Hooker (1844). Flora Antarctica, Volume 1, Parts 1-2, Flora Novae-Zelandiae. pp. v–vii.
  6. ^ Joseph Dalton Hooker (1844). Flora Antarctica, Volume 1, Parts 1-2, Flora Novae-Zelandiae. pp. 209–223.
  7. ^ Joseph Dalton Hooker (1844). Flora Antarctica, Volume 1, Parts 1-2, Flora Novae-Zelandiae. pp. 223–251.

External links[edit]

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