To William Hooker 1    24 September 1862

Melbourne bot.

Garden 24. Sept. 62.

My dear Sir William

I was extremely sorry to hear by last mail, that you were not yet in the enjoyment of your usual health. May I trust, that you will long ere this note reaches you be restored to strength, so that you may undisturbed live through the long & serene evening of life, when in happy repose you may, more deservedly than any one else in existence look back upon the unexampled extent of your own labours & those which emanated from them.

I really feel persuaded, that you not give yourself that amount of rest, which you require. The colossal labours on your fern work must fall too onerously on you, as they are almost uninterrupted.

To me it is always an enigma, how you are finding time for so labourious & extended researches, as alone the synopsis filicum2 involves.

My own work proceeds comparatively slow. Many departmental duties and other calls for honorary work on my time, leaves me often for days not a moment for the examination of plants. But I endeavour to free myself of all work that I can conveniently place in the hands of others.

By the "Great Britain" I have sent to you case No. 8 for Bentham's works, containing mainly Rhamnaceae.3 I am as much as my time will admit working the preliminaries for Bentham's Flora.

That Mr Heward has placed permanently Cunningham's collections at Kew does honor to him & is the kindest act which he could do toward his deceased friend.4 For nowhere else will they be more useful & better appreciated than at your noble establishment.

Ever your most

attached

Ferd Mueller

 

Sir Will Jacks. Hooker, K. H.

&c &c &c

 

Rhamnaceae

1
Written on black-edged mourning paper; M's sister Bertha died 7 September 1861.
2
Hooker & Baker (1865-8).
3
See M to W. Hooker, 17 September 1862.
4
See Kew report for 1862, p. 4. Allan Cunningham willed his herbarium and library to Robert Heward, who donated the herbarium to Kew in 1862 'on hearing that I was engaged in the present work ... in order that I might there have the free use of them' (Bentham [1863-78], vol. 1, p. 9*). See also R. Heward to G. Bentham, 15 July 1862 (RBG Kew, Bentham Correspondence, Vol. 5 (Hackel - Kuster), Letter No. 1991).

Please cite as “FVM-62-09-24b,” 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/62-09-24b