To William Hooker   24 January 1861

Melbourne bot. & zool. Garden,

24. Jan 61

My dear Sir William.

As I hope, that my annual report will be issued in the course of this day, so as to accompany this letter, there will be no necessity of relating to you my recent successes both phytological and geographical in our Alps.1

I enclose a few small leaves of the Grevillea Barklyana. Better specimens with leaves a foot long will be forwarded when I can finally sort the specimens, which during the last two years accumulated and which work I will undertake, when I return from my autumnal journey to Cape Howe.2 Meanwhile I am delighted to have got my museum building & fittings ready & dry and in a few days all the collections will be removed thither. The repositories of the one wing are nearly filled, altho I estimate them holding 160,000 specimens. If Mr Bentham has as yet not disposed of Mr Spruce's collection, it is not impossible that I may secure it.3

Dr Hookers request to supply in masses seeds of quick-growing & heat-resisting trees to the Consul at Jerusalem will be partially carried out by this partially by the next mail.4

I was so sorry to miss again Dr Seemans visit.5 I would have been so glad to show to him personally all the details of my really very large establishment, of which I believe he saw very little.

I look forward with anxiety to the winter season for continuing my work on the flora in time for Mr Bentham.

May I pray for seeds of Vaccinium myrtillus6 for our subalpine Beechforests with plenty of Sphagnum I will send my £65 for the R.S. to Dr Hooker by next mail7 A parcel of Algae for Prof Harvey will go by one of our next Clippers.8

Ever your & Dr Hookers

gratefully attached

Ferd. Mueller

 

Grevillea Barklyana

Sphagnum

Vaccinium myrtillus

 
1
Proofs of B61.02.01 were returned by M after this letter was written (see M to J Moore, 28 January 1861) and the printed report was tabled in Parliament on 6 February 1861. Thus if a copy was included with this letter, it must have been a proof copy.
2
But see M to W. Hooker, 24 March 1861.
3
In 1860 M had declined the opportunity to purchase a set of the South American plants that Richard Spruce had been collecting from 1849 and that Bentham prepared for sake and distribution, see M to G. Bentham, 24 July 1860.
4
See J. Hooker to M, 20 October 1860.
5
See notes W. Hooker to M, 20 April 1860.
6
Vaccinium myrtillus is marked in the margin with a cross.
7
In anticipation of being elected as FRS, which occurred on 6 June 1861.
8
M apparently wrote to Willam Harvey telling him to inquire of Kew about the receipt of the box: 'Mueller bids me enquire for a box of Algae sent to Kew by last mail steamer, & which ought to have arrived before now. If there be charges on it let me know, — that I may pay them, though I verily believe it is money thrown away. I wish he would stop sending Algae. He only sends rubbish generally — which I throw away — Yet he must expend money to no end, in this super-errogatory zeal. How can we stop him?' (W. Harvey to J. Hooker, 21 April [1861?], RBG Kew, Letters to J. D. Hooker (Har) vol. 11, f. 85).

Please cite as “FVM-61-01-24a,” 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 23 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/61-01-24a