page_title: Joseph Dalton Hooker
section_title: Himalayas and India 1847–1851
hierarchical_section_title: Joseph Dalton Hooker / Voyages / Himalayas and India 1847–1851
caption_attribution_description: English: Tibet and Cholamoo Lake from the summit of the Donkia Pass, looking North West.
context_page_description: Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM GCSI CB MD FRS was a British botanist and explorer of the 19th century. Hooker was one of the founders of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend. He was Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, for twenty years, in succession to his father, William Jackson Hooker, and was awarded the highest honours of British science.
context_section_description: On 11 November 1847 Hooker left England for his three year long Himalayan expedition; he would be the first European to collect plants in the Himalayas. Hooker's expedition was based in Darjeeling. Hooker wrote to Darwin relaying to him the habits of animals in India, and collected plants in Bengal.
  Hooker and a sizable party of local assistants departed for eastern Nepal on 27 October 1848. They travelled north west along Nepal's passes into Tibet. In April 1849 he started on a longer expedition into Sikkim, but he was imprisoned by the Dewan of Sikkim when they were travelling towards Tibet. A British team was sent to negotiate: they were released without bloodshed. Hooker returned to Darjeeling where he spent January and February 1850 writing his journals, replacing specimens lost during his detention and planning a journey for his last year in India.
  Hooker's survey of hitherto unexplored regions, the Himalayan Journals was published in 1854.
caption: Tibet, looking North West; from Himalayan Journals.
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