To William Hooker   25 June 1861

Melbourne bot. & zoolog. Garden,

25. june 61

My dear Sir William.

You will have received from the Colonial Office two letters by this mail. I send you yet before the close of post a rough sketch of the Araucaria Rulei with fruit, which I would be extremely glad to see published through your friendly mediation, in order to render this noble tree soon more generally known. The sketch would probably be an appropriate one for Professor Lindleys Gardeners Chronicle. The note concerning this species in my essay on the plants of the Burdekin Expedition¹ being extremely brief and drawn up from material extremely scanty, it may be appropriate to furnish now a preliminary diagnosis of this Araucaria.

Araucaria Rulei

F.M. essay of the plants collected by Eug. Fitzalan during Lieut. Smiths expedition to the Burdekin. p. 18.

(Sect.Colymbea)

Leaves imbricate, broadly semi-lanceolate, acute but not pungent, slightly keeled, scarcely perceptibly streaked; seed-bearing scales terminated in an erect or more or less curved long acumen, in front broadly along the seeds narrowly winged, without manifest basilar appendage.

On lofty peaks of a volcanic island near New Caledonia. W. Duncan.

The byefollowing sketch furnishes the dimensions of leaves and fruit-parts.²

An ample supply of healthy seedlings of this Araucaria has recently been secured by Mr Duncan for the nurseries of Messrs Smith & Adamson, to the liberality of these Gentlemen I owe the specimen, which is delineated in the illustration.

With veneration

yours

Ferd. Mueller

Sir Will. Jacks. Hooker,

K.H., Kn. Leg. Hon.,

&c &c &c

Araucaria Rulei