To William Hooker   23 January 1863

Melbourne bot. Garden,

23. jan 63

Dear Sir William.

When returning from the Barkly Ranges & Mount Useful in the Australian Alps I had the happiness of finding your very kind letter of the 25. November1 & to learn that your health had so much improved, and nothing could have given me greater delight than these good news. May it, so I ardently wish, be retained by you uninterruptedly for a long time.

My dwelling having been unroofed for the purpose of extending it, I have no access at present to my library & no room & space to work at any collections. I shall therefore go again away for a few weeks & will collect algae on the coast & work up journal notes. But when I return the publications here shall be continued with renewed vigor. I have the pleasure of announcing, that a box with Leguminosae is despatched to you for Mr Benthams use pr "Suffolk" last week, according to enclosed bill of loading.2

In the alps I made some curious observations on the range of plants, but obtained but few addditional species.

With the kind regards for you & Dr Hooker,

I remain, my dear Sir William,

your grateful & attached

Ferd. Mueller

 

Our seedharvest is now nearly completed & probably by next mail I shall be able to send the desired seeds for your new magnificent conservatory.

I examined numerous seeds of Coccoloba platyclada, but never find a well developed embryo, altho sometimes a mealy albumen. But the question, whether this plant has any claim to be placed with Muehlenbeckia seems very immaterial, since the latter appears to me merely a subgenus of the former. In Eriogonum namely we have axil and sublateral embryos in different species, also hermaphrodit[a] as well as polygamous flowers. The same as regards flowers might be said of Polygonum itself, whilst even the dry-fruited Polyg. diclinum is strictly dioecious.3

 

Coccoloba platyclada

Muehlenbeckia

Leguminosae

Eriogonum

Polygonum

Polygonum diclinum

 
Letter not found.
Bill of lading not found.
I examined ... strictly dioecious is on a separate sheet and may not have originally been part of this letter. M had sent a drawing made by J Schoenfeld of Coccoloba platyclada to Kew some months earlier; see M to W. Hooker, 24 May 1862 (in this edition as 62-05-24b). The illustration appeared as t. 5382 in Curtis's botanical magazine, 1 June 1863, accompanied by a description and notes written by M (B63.06.01).

Please cite as “FVM-63-01-23,” 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 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/63-01-23