Root of the columbo or calumba plant, Cocculus palmatus. Illustration drawn by Mrs. C. Telfair and Professor Bojer, engraved by Swan. Handcolored copperplate engraving from William Curtis's "The Botanical Magazine," Samuel Curtis, 1830. Hooker (1785-1865) was an English botanist, writer and artist. He was Regius Professor of Botany at Glasgow University, and editor of Curtis' "Botanical Magazine" from 1827 to 1865. In 1841, he was appointed director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and was succeeded by his son Joseph Dalton. Hooker documented the fern and orchid crazes that shook England in the mid-19th century in books such as "Species Filicum" (1846) and "A Century of Orchidaceous Plants" (1849). A gifted botanical artist himself, he wrote and illustrated "Flora Exotica" (1823) and several volumes of the "Botanical Magazine" after 1827.