Kew Sept 20/62
My dear Mueller
I have this day received with many thanks the cheque for £30.0.0. The beautiful little grass from Darling1 enclosed we cannot name at all. You had sent it before from the Barrier range.2 — I have sent it to Col. Munro at Bermuda, & will let you know his answer. When it comes.3
I must leave it to Bentham to write to you about the Australian Flora & your collections &c. I am quite unable to enter upon the subject being literally overwhelmed this year with work & visitors of all kinds so that my Botanical affairs are getting into sad arrears.
The Welwitschia has taken me many weeks study & will cost me many more to finish it. It will take 13 plates of the Linneean Transactions to do its scanty justice; for it is incomparably the most marvellous plant ever found in any country.4
I am delighted to hear that your health keeps good & that you are still so successfully & usefully employed, though I do hope you will take care of your health & take warning in time. My Father has been troubled all summer with his skin complaint, which affects his ancles & hence his walking — he is much better now, & goes to the country in a day or two.
Bentham is in the country, I do not know when he returns to Kew.
Ever dear Mueller
sincerely yr
J D Hooker
Harvey & his wife5 spent some weeks here, we like the latter extremely, she is very lively agreeable sensible & a charming companion to him in every way suited.
Welwitschia
Please cite as “FVM-62-09-20,” 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