To George Grey   7 June 1858

Melbourne bot. Gardens

[7] June 1858.

Sir George.

In forwarding a parcel of seeds to the bot. Garden of Cape Town, I do myself the pleasure of adding to it a few pamphlets, which I hope your Excellency will accept as a very small token of respect and admiration.

I beg to thank your Excellency also on this occasion for the kind promise of fostering the mutual interchanges between these gardens & those of South Africa, and I trust, that finally much advantage to the colonists will be derived from this intercourse.

Being engaged on a general work on the plants of Australia, your Excellency will pardon me perhaps when enquiring, whether the Calamus noticed in your Excellencys travel through N.W. Australia,1 is perhaps identical with the [enclosed] Flagellaria Indica, which I observed extending to the jungles of Arnhem's Land. I am only acquainted with Calamus Australis from East [Australia]. I would beg leave also to enquire, whether your Excellency is perhaps in possession yet even of the smallest [sprick]of the N.W. Australian Araucaria figured in your work, so that a diagnosis might be furnished of it.2 I should feel extremely proud to gain the opportunity of distinguishing this doubtless undescribed species with your Excellencys celebrated name.3 Neither in Central Australia, nor in Arnhems Land, nor around the Gulf of Carpentaria did we notice any Araucaria during Mr Gregory's expedition. A very magnificent new Araucaria with leaves like Arthrotaxis selaginoides4 was lately forwarded to me for description from New Caledonia.5

I would crave again your Excellencys pardon for enclosing a letter to Mr Thos. Baines,6 a fellow traveller of mine in North Australia, who in all likelihood by this time will have arrived under Dr Livingstones engagements at Capetown.

Should your Excellency regard the humble labours of our [on]struggling scientific societies in Australia of sufficient value for future acceptance, I should feel happy to furnish them with regularity.

I remain with [very] greatest admiration for your Excellencys achievements as a geographer, as a statesman and as a philanthrop

your most humble & attached

Ferd. Mueller,

M.D, Ph. D.

 

His Excellency Sir G. Gray, K.C.B. &c &c &c.

Governor General of South Africa

 
 

Araucaria

Arthrotaxis selaginoides

Calamus Australis

Flagellaria Indica

 
1
Grey (1841) vol. 1, p. 246.
2
Grey (1841) vol 1, p. 248: 'the Araucaria Excelsa was found on the heights, both near the sea coast and further inland'. There is also an illustration 'Attack of natives near Hanover Bay' in vol. 1, p. 106 which includes trees that may be Araucarias as part of the background.
3
Muir (1979) lists no species of Araucarianamed by M for Grey.
4
Athrotaxis selaginoides?
5
Presumably Araucaria rulei (B61.09.01, p. 868).
6
Letter not found.

Please cite as “FVM-58-06-07,” 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 26 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/58-06-07