ABSTRACT
William Jackson Hooker was a leader of British botany for five decades, and for about half that time he and Hewett Cottrell Watson were regular correspondents. The affable William Hooker expressed a hope of seeing Watson in the autumn, perhaps at the meeting of the Naturalists Association, but the latter declined: 'The love of solitude makes me shun such scenes'. Perhaps Hooker had suggested that Watson contribute an article, for Watson agreed to send one on the range of species in the Scottish Highlands, 'in regard to height, somewhat after the plan of De Candolle, in his paper in Mémoirs de Physique & de Chemie de la Sociétéd'Arcueil'. Watson also urged Hooker to establish a garden of British plants at Kew since 'the seeds, at least, of many might be readily obtained through the Botanical Societies, or individual botanists. Nevertheless, Hooker requested that Watson review Jules Thurmann's Essai de phytostatistique for the London Journal of Botany.
