Botanic Garden Melbourne,
6. June 1854.1
My dear Sir,
Dr. Graham called on me some while ago to receive the specific names to some specimens of plants, which he gathered about the Ballarat goldfields, and as he is going now back to your fine country I thought it to be an agreeable opportunity to establish if possible an intercourse with you, which, perhaps of but little advantage to you, will be as delightful as instructiv2 to me.3
You will have been perhaps surprised to see some of your already described Western Australian Compositae reappears with new names and new descriptions in the Linnaea of 1853.4 This was partly to5 my not receiving in time your valuable remarks6 and partly to protracted publication. Already as early 1847 I commenced describing Australian plants when staying at Adelaide but unfortunately the main set of my manuscripts was lost 1851 on the way home in the wreck of the "Sir Rob. Peel" on the Capcoast7 and appointed here only since about one year I have been not able yet to restore all the loss from my scattered notes.
It would be extremly gratifing8 to me, dear Sir, if you would send me a collection of North American plants, such as you can spare, for which I shall be happy to return at once an equal number of Australian plants (with name and loc. natal.9). Of seeds I shall have also constantly a lot ready for exchange, should you be pleased to send us same for our garden. We have really but very little from N.A.
Since now an almost regular trade exists with the N.A. harbours I think there will be but little difficulty in realising the object proposed.
Allow me, dear Sir, to subscribe myself as one of your friends and admirers.
Ferd. Mueller.
Prof. Dr. Asa Gray.
Compositae
Annotated in blue pencil And July 6. 1857 (letter not found).
v written over f.
The MS was folded and addressed 'Professor Asa Gray M.D. F.L.S | &c &c &c | Boston' and annotated 'Kind. forw. by Dr. Graham'. A US postage stamp has been affixed, cancelled with a postmark 'Plymouth Mass May 20' without a year shown, and 'or Cambridge' added below 'Boston' which has been deleted in pencil. The sheet is annotated in pencil 'Give this proper direction, if wrong'.
The postmark indicates that the letter would not have been received by Gray until May 1855 at the earliest, and possibly as late as May 1857. Graham has not been identified, and details of neither his departure from Australia nor his arrival in the United States have been found.
B53.04.01.
due omitted?
A. Gray (1851).
See notes to M to W. Hooker, 18 October 1853, and Lucas (1995).
extremely gratifying?
locus natalis, locality where a plant is collected.
Please cite as “FVM-54-06-06,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on