24/3/62
Dear Dr Hooker.
Dr Hector has brought me your note.1 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 Lindsay2 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 Black3 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.8 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?9
Mr F. Gregory will alter in his report, that his Adansonia is Brachychiton.10
Acronychia Cunninghami
Adansonia
Aurantiaceae
Brachychiton.
Cookia
Dodonaea pinifolia
Empleurosma
Euodia
Glycosmis pentaphylla
Huegelia
Melicope
Nelumbium
Rutaceae
Zanthoxylea
J. Hooker to M, 3 January 1861.
Lauder Lindsay?
Allan Black.
M described Cookia australis in 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 & 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 haastii was described in J. Hooker (1864-7), part 1, p. 6. There are several Ranunculus collections made by Haast in MEL, but the only three with dates are later than this letter. There is an undated specimen named R. haastii, MEL 2427508, previously named R. lyallii, with a note by M 'sent by me 1859 or 1860 as R hastii to Dr. Hooker'. The most recent determination as R. Haastii is by M, but the AVH record does not give the date of determination. While M's note and determination suggest it is the same species as described under that name, it is not certainly so.
Presumably B63.04.03.
The chart 'Explorations in North-Western Australia: by an expedition sent by the British and local government under the command of F. T. Gregory FRGS, April to November 1861', lithographed 9 May 1862 has comments such as 'high and wooden with small trees', 'stunted Acacia', and 'good grass – melons'; see the National Library of Australia digitised edition http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-231432994.
Robert Brown (1773-1858); the geneus was erected and attributed among Rutaceae to Brown's manuscript name in Endlicher (1836-40), p. 1156.
'Adansonia' is used in F. Gregory (1861), the newspaper version of his report; that name is retained in F. Gregory (1862) p. 428, the version 'communicated by the Colonial Office' to the Royal Geographical Society.
MS black-edged.
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