To Joseph Hooker1    24 March 1862

24/3/62

Dear Dr Hooker.

Dr Hector has brought me your note.2 He seem's a most excellent, promising & zealous investigator of nature, from whom in succession of years we are likely to learn much indeed. I enjoy his acquaintance much. Dr Launder Lindsay3 went home from Sydney without having touched here, a circumstance I much regret. — I have recently looked over Aurantiaceae & find that I have Glycosmis pentaphylla from several parts of East Australia. It fully accords with the Indian plant Mr Black or rather Dr Planchon is quite right to refer my Cookia to a new genus of Rutaceae (or Z[a]nthoxyleae)4 From the enclosed fruit you will observe, that the Acronychia Cunninghami is a true Euodia (subgenus Melicope)

Mr Haast has sent me many plants from New Zealand. I abstain from doing anything with them, as you will be glad to collect supplementary-notes for your N Z flora and as you have the same material yourself. But as an acknowledgement to Haast for having named an alpine torrent after myself near the Hooker River5 I have selected one remarkable ranunculus & put to it Haasts name.6 The fragment enclosed is but small. Some of the [radial] leaves, which are always peltate, are as large as those of a good sized Nelumbium!

Mr Fr Gregory told me when passing that he had sent your worthy father a set of his plants. I received also one. Presuming that amidst the masses of new material from Africa & India you do not care to elucidate them, I shall at once commence on them a report, so that Mr Gregory may have it available when going home in a few weeks.7 He will mark the principle botanic features on the chart. I correctly anticipated that Bartlings Empleurosma is a Dodonaea. Sonder identified it with Dodonaea pinifolia!

Ever yours

Ferd Mueller

 

Is not Brown's Huegelia Myrtaceous?

Mr F. Gregory will alter in his report, that his Adansonia is Brachychiton.

 

Acronychia Cunninghami

Adansonia

Aurantiaceae

Brachychiton.

Cookia

Dodonaea pinifolia

Empleurosma

Euodia

Glycosmis pentaphylla

Huegelia

Melicope

Nelumbium

Rutaceae

Zanthoxylea

MS black-edged.
J. Hooker to M, 3 January 1861.
Lauder Lindsay?
M described Cookia australis iin B58.06.01, p. 25; no reference to Planchon’s opinion has been found. J. Hooker erected the genus Pentaceras , to which he referred M’s species, in Bentham and Hooker (1862-83), vol. 1 (1), p. 298.
M is probably referring to the river that emerges from the Mueller Glacier at the base of Mt Cook, NZ, rather than the Mueller River near Mt Aspiring that was probably also named by Haast (although no direct evidence of his doing this has been found). The Hooker River is also close to Mt Cook.
Ranunculus haasti was described in J. Hooker (1864), p. 6.
Presumably B63.13.03.

Please cite as “FVM-62-03-24a,” 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 28 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/62-03-24a