Melbourne bot & zool Garden,
20 April 1860.
My dear Dr Hooker
Your consignment of dried specimens of dried plants arrived since the despatch of the last mail & I have to tender you my cordial thanks for this valuable contribution to our public collection.1 My joy about them would have been greater still, had they arrived in good condition. But who could have anticipated, that so old a bussiness-Gentleman as Mr Pamplin would allow such treasures to proceed on their long seavoyage without being packed in a metal-lined case. Thus many of the specimens, as well as books were greatly damaged by damp.
In better order arrived the valuable 3 fascicle of the Tasmanian Flora2 which you were so generous to send by Dr Seemann.3 Accept for them & their friendly manifestations towards me my cordial acknowledgement.
In the bustle of the planting season, I have only been able to cast my eye over the pages & the fascicles being at the binders, I cannot enter much into details about all what you say. I find however that you omitted to enumerate Donatia Novae Zeelandiae from Mount Laperouse, also Panax sambucifolius4 from the E. Coast of VDL and Triodontium, unless this moss is reduced to some other genus. I am engaged now on a review of Eucalypti. Thus I find, that E. gigantea is probably the original E. obliqua, as your venerable father already thought in the Bot Magazine when publishing Backhouse's notes.5 Lamark6, who I believed copied from L'Heritier7 could not have given a more faithful representation. I reduce the 14 Tasm Eucal to 9!
In your list of Indo-Australian plants8 (i.e. species) you omitted several exempli gratia: Potamogeton tenuicaulis which Tuckermann9 considers quite distinct from P hybridus (conf. Fragm phytogr. Austr. p. 244)10 Sterculia foetida mentioned by R Br; also Sclerachne punctata RBr found by me in Arnhems Land., Capparis incanescens & divaricata — amongst genera Bambusa, Sciadophyllum, Nepenthes, Musa &c. In your remarks on the missing of so many Indian forms, I would say, that we may still expect them to exist on mountains, such as Mt Bellenden Ker in N.E. Australia 5000'. It is to the absence of mountains alone in N. & N.W. Austr that I adscribe the absence of Balsamin[eae], Begoniaceae, Quercus & endless other Indian mountain forms.
The flora of West Austr is richer as you had the means of ascertaining. Mr Oldfield brought from thence Heterodendrum oleifolium, Nitraria Billardierii & other Eastern Australian forms & from E. Mt Barren & the Phillips River I have many identical Murray desert plants!
I have acted on your kind suggestion11 & written to Mr Thwaites for Senna seeds.12 Our great desiderata are amongst others Quadria heterophylla & Erythroxylum coca,13 but I do not know where to obtain them. I have a box with seeds, specimens, barks &c packed for Kew. By next mail I shall be able to say, in what vessel this consignment went.
Many thanks for the seeds & plants pr Great Brittain. Many of the latter suffered & the old fatality carried the Nuphar & the Papyrus off.
Ever your sincerely attached
Ferd. Mueller
When you drew your comparison between the opportunities the meritorious Cunningham had for botanizing with those, which a series of fortunate circumstances afforded to my self, you could not know, that I travelled now 19, 000 miles by land in various lines, 5000 miles in various lines in South Austr on private expense of mine from 1847-1852. 6000 miles in Vict 1853-1855 & 1857-1859. 6000 miles in N. Austr 1855-1856. I have botanical diaries of all these journies.14
When I furnished my notes on Austr Botany in Kew Miscell 185[2] I had examined carefully & analyzed 1500 spec of South Austr phanerogamous plants collected without any aid of the state.15 Not enjoying then the friendship of British Botanists few of these ever reached your islands, but they are mostly in Continal16 Museums deposited, an entire set being only in Melbourne.
Balsamineae
Bambusa
Begoniaceae
Capparis divaricata
Capparis incanescens
Donatia Novae Zeelandiae
Erythroxylum coca
Eucalyptus gigantea
Eucalyptus obliqua
Heterodendrum oleifolium
Musa
Nepenthes
Nitraria Billardierii
Nuphar
Panax sambucifolius
Papyrus
Potamogeton hybridus
Potamogeton tenuicaulis
Quadria heterophylla
Quercus
Sciadophyllum
Sclerachne punctata
Sterculia foetida
Triodontium
Please cite as “FVM-60-04-20a,” 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 18 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/60-04-20a