The Wardian Case

From the introduction: Dear Mr. Gray, The Wardian case to which this letter is attached contains a curious lichen for your scientific investigation. Although the specimens of this plant brought from Cockburn Island, Graham’s Land, near the Antarctic Peninsula are very perfect and well developed, they belong to so difficult a group of lichens as to have baffled me in my attempts to reduce it to any known species. I have forwarded a sample on to you with my compliments and the hope that you can definitively unravel this taxonomical mystery. I have named it in your honour with complete confidence in your ultimate triumph. These specimens were collected with great difficulty from a wave-cut platform of early Pleistocene pecten conglomerate at a height of perhaps 800 feet. I eagerly await your reply. Yours truly, Joseph Dalton Hooker