This illustration by Walter Fitch of the subantarctic megaherb Anisotome latifolia, which is a giant flowering carrot, was an illustration in Joseph Hooker's book, Flora Antarctica. Hooker, the son of Kew Gardens director William Hooker, spent four years as a botanist on Sir James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition from 1839 to 1843. In 1841 the expedition passed three months in the Bay of Islands, where Hooker was greatly assisted in his botanical work by William Colenso. In 1852 Hooker published the first of his two-volume Flora Novae-Zealandiae. In 1864 came his Handbook of New Zealand flora, which was the basic guide to New Zealand plants for many years. Its compilation was aided by the specimens sent from New Zealand by local naturalists such as Colenso, Andrew Sinclair and David Lyall. Joseph Hooker succeeded his father at Kew Gardens and helped strengthen the New Zealand plant collections in the gardens.