Flora Tasmaniae
| Author | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
|---|---|
| Country | England |
| Language | English |
| Series | Monthly parts |
| Subject | Botany |
| Publisher | Reeve Brothers |
|
Publication date
|
1853 – 1859 |
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. Hooker sailed on HMS Erebus as assistant surgeon. It was the last in a series of four Floras in the Flora Antarctica, the others being the Flora of Lord Auckland and Campbell's Islands (1843–45), the Flora of Fuegia, the Falkland Islands, etc (1845-47), and the Flora Novae-Zelandiae (1851–53). They were "splendidly" illustrated by Walter Hood Fitch.
The larger part of the plant specimens collected during the Ross expedition are now part of the Kew Herbarium.
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.
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.
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, collecting plants in Tasmania until 12 November. A week later the flotilla stopped at Lord Auckland's Islands and Campbell's Island for the spring months.
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