Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM GCSI CB FRS (30 June 1817 - 10 December 1911) was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century.

Hooker was a founder 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.

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 Himalaya. He received free passage on HMS Sidon; to the Nile and then travelled overland to Suez where he boarded a ship to India. He arrived in Calcutta on 12 January 1848; then travelled by elephant to Mirzapur; up the Ganges by boat to Siliguri and overland by pony to Darjeeling; arriving on 16 April 1848.

Hooker's survey of hitherto unexplored regions; the Himalayan Journals; dedicated to Charles Darwin; was published by the Calcutta Trigonometrical Survey Office in 1854; abbreviated again in 1855 and later by Ward; Lock; Bowden & Co.; 1891. Pictures From History