To William Hooker   24 August 1861

24/8/61

Dear Sir William.

I beg to send you an other sheet of my flora,1 that of Buettneriaceae is following & nearly ready. I beg also to send a copy of my semiofficial letter forwarded last mail & some letters having reference to Mr Benthams work.2

I trust you in your usual goodness will not think me selfish. - God knows I have endured troubles & dangers & losses so manyfold for the sake of an Australian Flora, that I hardly like to think of past years of toil. I have recently extended my library to such an extent, that the botanical portion alone cost me about a thousand pounds, which is entirely privatproperty. I have sent a collector3 by the Victoria to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Mr Oldfield goes to Cape Leewin.4 Mr Maxwell to the great Bight or rather to the country behind it. Gregory has promised to collect at Mount Augustus,5 Walcott in N. W. Australia and others elsewhere. Of all these plants Mr Bentham shall have full access & your herbarium be provided with. As soon as the Exhibition6 duties are passed, which will be at the fall of the year I can sort all duplicates, as the first vol. of my flora will also be ready by that time. Dr Beckler has sent some very nice new things from Barrier range,7 the novelties being chiefly compositae. I hope the various consignments of algae &c &c arrived.

Ever your grateful

Ferd. Mueller.

 

I was so pleased to hear of my election to the R.S. and have asked for dispension of the rule of personal attendance in my favor.8 I trust it will be granted and I have also written to Sir R. Murchison & Prof. Owen on the same subject.9 Pray give Mr Bentham my sincerely joyful congratulation to the so well merited Presidency of the L.S.10 — Best regards to Dr Hooker & Dr Harvey.

Mr Phelps, Dr Harveys new brother in law, was in my house yesterday.11 He is an excellent and generous man.12

 

Buettneriaceae

Compositae

 
 
1
B62.03.03.
2
M to W. Hooker, 23 July 1861; the other letters 'having reference to Mr Benthams work' probably included G. Bennett to M, 24 July 1861, H. Barkly to M, 24 July 1861 (in this edition as 61-04-27a), R. MacDonnell to M, 17 July 1861, and W. Archer to M, August 1861 (in this edition as 61-08-00b).
3
Diedrich Henne.
4
Cape Leeuwin, WA.
5
Francis Gregory in 1861 led an exploring expedition to the Pilbara region of WA but he did not go to Mt Augustus, which he had named in 1858 (Gregory and Gregory [1884]). See B63.04.03.
6
Melbourne exhibition of 1861, in conjunction with the London exhibition of 1862. See B61.13.06.
7
NSW.
8
At its meeting on 24 October 1861, the Council of the Royal Society resolved 'that Mr Ferdinand Müller, now in Australia, be granted an extension of the time of his admission into the Society during his stay abroad'; see Minutes of the Council of the Royal Society,(Print) vol. 3 (London, 1870), pp. 100-1.
9
M to R. Owen, 24 August 1861; the letter to Murchison has not been found.
10
Elected President of the Linnean Society, 24 May 1861.
11
Possibly Josh . Phelps, to whom William Harvey referred in one of his letters home; Harvey married Elizabeth Phelps on 2 April 1861. See Ducker (1988), pp. 15, 195.
12
MS annotation by W. Hooker: Seeds. | Azolla dead. | One box of live plants by Kohinoor. | Parcel of Seaweeds. [Pamphlets] [Anemonies]'. Most of the plants by Kohinoor were recorded as arriving dead (RBG Kew, Inwards Book, 1859-1867, pp 122-3, entry number 218, dated 31 October 1861).

Please cite as “FVM-61-08-24a,” 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 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/61-08-24a