From William Hooker   31 January 1861

Jan 31. 1861.

Dear Dr Mueller

In your last welcome letter1 you expressed a desire to have seeds of the Senna plant. We not unfrequently raise them but as they are tender with us, we never get ripe seeds nor retain our plants: — & my advice to you was to get them from Calcutta. But on mentioning this matter to my distinguished friend Mr Hanbury2 the great chemical Druggist, he said, "Dr Mueller will only get the Tinnevalli3 kind which is very inferior. We even now receive seeds with the drug of the best sorts, & I will see what I can do among our last imports." He has just sent me the enclosed, which are as recent as can be expected via Europe. But he adds "if these do not germinate with Dr Mueller his only resource will be from India.4

Dr Anderson who takes Dr Thomson's place at the Rl Botanic Garden Calcutta, only left us 2 days ago for his new charge — & he will be most happy to hear from you & to render you any service in his power. I told him that you would probably have occasion to write to him.

Also you mentioned your desire to have seeds of Dracaena Draco. Of that also we never raise seeds: but I have just been informed, that the upper part of a healthy plant 2-3 feet long was cut off & planted & has struck root. This we can well spare & it is quite at your service & in 2 or 3 mos5 will be quite ready for transport, if worth sending you. It would go safely well packed in some soft substance in a common box, dry:— & if you like some nice Cactuses or other succulent plants might go with it in the same way.

I know not how it is but plants do not know of days6 travel so securely in Wardian cases as they used to do: at any rate we have been unfortunate of late years:— & a Wardian Case is now always opened with fear & trembling & we are sure to find a very large proportion of deaths.

You will by this time I trust have received Parts I & II of the 2d Century of Ferns.7 Part III. is nearly finished, & Part8 has already all the plates executed upon stone. I have no expectation of inducing a publisher to undertake a 3d Century. The sale is not sufficient to warrant the continuance of such a work. And yet I am sorry for it: — for the most laboured descriptions are not equal to a well executed figure with magnified analyses.

What a noble Araucaria9 that must be of which you were so good as to send me the apex of a branch. There must be a great deal of novelty in that curious group of islands connected with New Caledonia.

I have had the sample of Araucaria exhibited at the Philosophical Club; 10& the members were delighted with it. Seemann11 is now on his way home with his collections: about 1000 species.

Faithfully & affectionately yours

W. J. Hooker.

 

Araucaria

Dracaena Draco

Senna

 
1
M to W. Hooker, 25 August 1860, in this edition as 60-08-25a.
2
Daniel Hanbury (1825-75).
3
Tinnevelly.
4
M to W. Hooker, 25 April 1861, reported that seeds of Cassia oblongata had germinated in Melbourne .
5
months.
6
nowadays?
7
W. Hooker (1860-1). There is no evidence in any surviving letter that M received these parts; the copy of the work at MEL was acquired not as a presentation from Hooker but later, 'obtained in interchange'.
8
Hooker omitted the Part number here.
9
Araucaria rulei, described by M in B60.13.12, p.19, with a fuller description in B61.09.01, p. 868.
10
Joseph Hooker exhibited the branch at the meeting of the Philosophical Club on 24 January 1861 (Bonney 1919, pp 135-54).
11
Berthold Seemann had been collecting in Fiji.

Please cite as “FVM-61-01-31a,” 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/61-01-31a