To Joseph Hooker   15 December 1858

Melbourne bot & zool Garden,

15 Dec 1858

My dear Dr Hooker.

Your letter dated Aug 23.1 did not arrive in time, to answer to it by last mail.

I am infinitely obliged to you, for your helping me so friendly in determining the N. Austral. plants.

I beg to offer a few new habitats of Tasmanian plants, the Dendrobium Milligani even adding a genus.

 

Hewardia Tasmanica

Mount Laperouse Oldfield2

Burnettia cuneata Ldl.3

Oyster Cove. Dr Milligan4

Cryptostylis longifolia

Oyster Cove. Dr Milligan

Chiloglottis Gunnii

Ben Lomond 5000' Dr Milligan.

This species is not rare on the stems of fern trees in Gippsland.

Calochilus campestris

Oyster Cove. Milligan

Pterostylis squamata

Flinders Island. Milligan

Caleana major RBr.

N. W. Bay. Milligan

If Mr Bentham has published the Barklya, I should be very thankful for a copy of the work which contains it.5

The honor. Will. Haines, our former Premier, was so good to take a small box with specimens pamphlets & seeds to Kew, and by the same vessel I forwarded a Wardian Case, which I trust will not share the fate of the former.6 If you only received the Polygonum platycladum (which strikes well from cuttings) and the extraordinar & beautiful Cynoglossum Chathamicum, I should think you would be pleased. We are just figuring the latter plant for the phil. Institute.7

The fruit is smooth, therefore it may be put into Omphalodes, Mattia or any other of the miserable genera, which have been separated from Cynoglossum.

After the publication of Sarcochilus I find that it is identical with Gunnia Australis; only two days ago I received specimens from the excell. Mr Gunn, which are identical with mine. I sent some January last to Prof Lindley but received no answer.8 Your making the sepals to be yellow led me astray, for they are quite green, but like [nearly] all green orchids turn a little yellow in drying.9

I have therefore resurrect Gunnia on an Australia plant.10

I feel myself the difficulty you speak of in regard to the chaotic publication of my new plants.11 But for this very reason I intend henceforth to collect all my diagnoses in the Fragmenta and write to each volume (every two years) a perfect index. I hope the Government will not see any objections of continuing printing my diagnoses. The Linnéans seem to have the hands full, therefore I would do better to publish Loganiaceae, Goodeniaceae & Stylideae here, these orders I mentioned otherwise some long time ago to Mr Kippist as desirable for L.S. journal, and mentioned to him that your worthy father would no doubt hand that section of my msc. over to him[.]12 It is a great additional labor, that I have to [rewrite] [now] from my rough notes much of the manuscript, which lays unpublished at Kew.13

As soon as I hear from Mr Kippist I will arrange about my deposit for membership of the Linn. Society14 — I may say however, that I am at present quite destitute of fund, having spent much by keeping private collectors going & adding to my library — your announced contribution to the latter will be most gratefully received.

I prepare now for a journey to the S.W. not yet by any one traversed part of the alps.15 It will be a difficult, even dangerous journey, and the bot. success will be doubtful; but I do not like to send the Flora of Victoria to the press without having travelled over the whole ground.

Eremophila Sturtii is now found also in this colony & likewise the rare Corethrostylis Schulzenii.

Possibly I shall miss the next mail when in the mountains. After my return from the alps I will visit the Corypha Country16 about Cape Howe. No Botanist has as yet been there.

Pray give my kindest regards to Sir William and to Prof Harvey and receive the best wishes for your welfare

from Ferd. Mueller

 

Barklya

Burnettia cuneata

Caleana major

Calochilus campestris

Chiloglottis Gunnii

Corethrostylis Schulzenii

Corypha

Cryptostylis longifolia

Cynoglossum Chathamicum

Dendrobium Milligani

Eremophila Sturtii

Goodeniaceae

Goodeniaceae

Gunnia Australis

Hewardia Tasmanica

Loganiaceae

Polygonum platycladum

Pterostylis squamata

Stylideae

1
J. Hooker to M, 23 August 1858.
2
Augustus Oldfield.
3
'Burnettia' has been ticked in the margin of the MS.
4
Joseph Milligan.
5
B59.02.02. See J. Hooker to M, 23 August 1858 and G. Bentham to M, 23 August 1858.
6
See M to W. Hooker, 14 June 1858.
7
Although M discussed Cynoglossum chathamicum and exhibited a living specimen at a meeting of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria on 8 November 1858, he refrained from publishing it 'because meanwhile the venerable Sir Will Hooker had given an account of the same plant'. See Transactions of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria (1859) p. xxv and B64.13.02, pp. 2, 32. J. Hooker (1858a) described the plant as Cynogossum nobile: W. Hooker transfered it to a new genus, Myostidium, in W. Hooker (1827-64) vol. 85, t. 5137 (1859).
8
See M to W. Hooker, 9 January 1858. See M to R. Gunn, 14 December 1858 for an explanation of the publication of the species as Sarcochilus barklyanus.
9
J.Hooker (1855-60) vol. 2, p. 32 describes the flowers as yellow.
10
M erected Gunnia (G. septifraga) in B59.10.02, p. 9.
11
See J. Hooker to M, 23 August 1858.
12
editorial addition.Letter not found.
13
M had sent diagnoses, mainly from the North Australia Exploring Expedition, to Kew in the expectation that they would be published by William Hooker in his Journal of botany and Kew Garden miscellany, which ceased publication in 1857. Some MSS were prepared for the Linnean Society by the Hookers and Bentham (see J. Hooker to M, 10 October 1857, 22 June 1858 and 23 August 1858, and G. Bentham to M, 23 August 1858).
14
M was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society on 20 January 1859.
15
See M to J. O'Shanassy, 12 December 1858, and J. Moore to M, 15 December 1858.
16
That is, the region, which includes the locality now known as Cabbage Tree Creek, in which grows the Cabbage Tree Palm, described by Robert Brown as Corypha australis. See Brown (1810) p. 267.

Please cite as “FVM-58-12-15a,” 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 25 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/58-12-15a