15/10/63
My very dear Sir.
I feel grateful for your kindness in sending the 3 copies of your work to my Copenhagen friends.1 I made some enquiry at Baillière Melbourne firm, but there are no tidings of the shipment of the 30 copies of your work, you so kindly secured for our Government.2
That the material for vol. II is shipped successively during the last months my letters will have told you. But I will repeat briefly once more by what ships these collections were transmitted.
Case 9. Ship Suffolk. jan 1863.
Leguminosae, chiefly Extra Victorian Genera.
Case 10. Mailsteamer, february.
Supplemental Thalamiflorae.
Case 11. Great Britain. April
Gastrolobium, Jacksonia & suppl. Leguminosae to Case N. 9
Case 12. "Anglesey" Acaciae
8 june 1863.
Case 13. Roxburgh Castle
Acaciae. 28 june 63.
Case 14. Yorkshire, Acaciae
1. Aug. 1862.3
Case 15 True Briton
Leguminosae 19/8/63.
Case 16. Monarch 7/9/63.
Leguminosae
Case 17. dito. Leguminosae, also Chrysobal, Melastom,4 Combretaceae.
Case 18. Norfolk 25/9/63.
Leguminosae & rest of small orders, indicated by you
Will you be so very friendly as to let me always know, what has safely reached you. Shall I send you Eucalypti & other Myrtaceae at once?
Your examination of the Leguminosae must give glorious results. It was always your favorite order and you have brought to bear on it much weightier experience than any other Botanist could have done. Most likely you have many Leguminosae unknown to me, otherwise your estimate of the species excels mine. Of Isotropis you will now have the tropical I. atropurpurea & an other new species from Coopers Creek5 I am glad to observe, that you agree with me in the junction of Roea and Sphaerolobium.6
My Daviesia latipes of the Linnaea 1852 must be brought to D. pectinata7
Is not Aotus gracillima a good species?8
That the cases pr "Prince of Wales" reached me safely I mentioned in my last letter9 & am thankful for your kind attention to them.
Ever with kindest attachment & the sincerest wishes for your precious health
I remain,
dear Sir,
[yr]
Ferd. Mueller10
I have again established the identity of 3 Australian plants with Indian ones, [vize] Euphorbia pilulifera & Spermacoce stricta and Knoxia corymbosa. The latter is here small flowered and therefore referable to K. mollis, which I regard as a mere variety of K. corymbosa. It is strange that the great R. Br. so many varieties mistook for species, even in his latest writings, after so long a life of experience as he must have had.
Is not the locality Nickol Bay to be spelled thus and not Nichol Bay?11 From the diagnosis of Triumfetta pilosa now printed12 you will observe that the generic character has to be widened so far as to admit of the singular character of its valvate capsule. I find the dehiscence quite the same in Ceylon specimens. You will be surprised that I unite 17 species under C. tetragona.13 Schauer pointed well out that it and C. glabra are identical,14 & I have never seen any second species in S.E. Australia or from Tasmania but this. The flower is never yellow except slightly so by tardy drying. It is quite possible, that this synonymy has still to be extended, because I can clearly recognize C. tetragona (with many other plants of the Murray desert) in specimens from between K G Sound15 & the Great Bight
Could not a poisoned paper be manufactured, which would keep collections safe against insects? What a saving of time might then be effected, if the tedious preservation processes are no longer needed. Will you kindly inform me, what besides Myrtaceae you desire to place in the 3. vol. Will it absorbe the rest of the orders not touched on by RBr.16
I observe, that you in the flora Hongk. reestablish Oldenlandia.17 Can it really be held up? I fear not, for after examining all my species & what I have of extra australian ones I find the carpological notes very fluctuating. We have 8 Oldenlandias, altho' I have not seen Australian specimina of O. racemosa, mentioned in Dr Hooker's list.18
Acacia
Aotus gracillima
Calycothrix glabra
Calycothrix tetragona
Chrysobalalaneae
Combretaceae
Daviesia latipes
Daviesia pectinata
Eucalyptus
Euphorbia pilulifera
Gastrolobium
Isotropis atropurpurea
Jacksonia
Knoxia corymbosa
Knoxia mollis
Leguminosae
Melastomeae
Myrtaceae
Myrtaceae
Oldenlandia racemosa
Roea
Spermacoce stricta
Sphaerolobium
Thalamiflorae
Triumfetta pilosa
J. Hooker (1855-60),does not mention Oldenlandia racemosa in his list of Indo-Australian plants, but does mention Hedyotis racemosa (vol. 1, p. xliv), the name by which the genus was treated by Bentham (1863-78), vol. 3, p. 403. Bentham does not include H. racemosa as an Australian species.
The text ends without valediction near the top of p. 4 of the folio.
Please cite as “FVM-63-10-15,” 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 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/63-10-15