Hooker, Joseph Dalton (1817–1911)

English botanist who travelled to the Antarctic and India, and made many botanical discoveries. His works include Flora Antarctica (1844–47), Genera plantarum (1862–83), and Flora of British India (1875–97).

Hooker was born in Halesworth, Suffolk, and studied medicine at Glasgow. He joined an expedition to locate the magnetic South Pole (1839–43), in the course of which he visited the Falkland Islands, Tasmania, and New Zealand. From 1847 to 1850 he undertook a botanical exploration of northeast India and the Himalayas, and sent back to England many previously unknown species of rhododendron. From 1855 he worked at Kew; under his directorship, the Index Kewensis was founded in 1883; this is a list of all scientific plant names, accompanied by descriptions.