Author | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
---|---|
Illustrator | Walter Hood Fitch |
Language | English |
Series | Monthly parts |
Subject | Botany |
Publisher | Reeve Brothers |
Publication date | 1853 – 1859 |
Publication place | England |
The Flora Tasmaniae is a description of the plants discovered in Tasmania during the Ross expedition written by Joseph Dalton Hooker and published by Reeve Brothers in London between 1855 and 1860.[1] Hooker sailed on HMS Erebus as assistant surgeon.[2] Written in two volumes, it was the last in a series of four Floras in the Flora Antarctica, the others being the Botany of Lord Auckland's Group and Campbell's Island (1843–1845), the Botany of Fuegia, the Falklands, Kerguelen's Land, Etc. (1845–47), and the Flora Novae-Zelandiae (1851–1853). 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]
Although Hooker professed not to have changed his views on Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, the book contains an introductory essay on biogeography written from a Darwinian point of view, making the book the first case study for the theory.