William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865) was the first director of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew in Britain, an institution that grew to prominence during his 24 years in that role.\u00a0 He was very interested in all plants and led some of the first plant explorations to isolated places in Europe, including Iceland.\u00a0 He was especially interested in non-flowering plants, with ferns as his favorite.<\/p>\n
He wrote several books on ferns beginning in the 1830s, most with botanically detailed and precise descriptions spanning several volumes.\u00a0 In addition to his explorations, he had also had a large herbarium of preserved plant specimens from around the world, so his range was global in scope.<\/p>\n
Recognizing the popular interest in ferns, he published for the more casual botanist and gardener \u201cBritish Ferns\u201d in 1861.\u00a0 He described his subjects as \u201cgeneral favourites with the lovers of Nature and of the horticulturist, in consequence of the extreme beauty and gracefulness of their forms.\u201d\u00a0 Walter Hood Fitch (1817-1892), a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Hooker\u2019s, captured that beauty in hand-colored, lithograph images such as the Osmunda regalis<\/em> or the \u201cOsmund Royal fern.\u201d\u00a0 Hooker translated \u201cosmund\u201d as meaning domestic peace in Saxon.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Excerpted from the Spring 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865) was the first director of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew in Britain, an institution that grew to prominence during his 24 years in that role.\u00a0 He was very interested in all plants and led some of the first plant explorations to isolated places in Europe, including Iceland.\u00a0 He was especially interested in non-flowering plants, with ferns as his favorite. He wrote several books on ferns beginning in the 1830s, most with botanically detailed and precise…<\/p>\n