To Joseph Hooker   24 January 1864

Melb. bot Garden

24/1/64.

Dear Dr Hooker.

I have to express to you my condolation for the sad loss you sustained in your family and of which I heard only by the last mail.1 I hope that your venerable fathers health will remain unimpaired, as in his advanced age any slight shock might become detrimental. It is a blessing that you amongst your vigorous work maintain such robustness and mental elasticity, which I trust you will still long preserve.

It is highly pleasing to perceive, that you are still able to advance the Genera plantarum,2 a work on which all botanists in future will lean for support.

My best thanks are due to the noble reviewer of the Flora Australienesis for the generous & feeling consideration shown to myself and which offers some recompense for the sacrifice which I have made toward this work.3

I am a subscriber to the Natural History review and will write to Prof Oliver to express my thanks to that Gentleman.4

With kind regards

Yr

Ferd Mueller

1
Maria Elizabeth Hooker, the six-year-old daughter of Joseph Hooker, died on 28 September 1863. It is not known how M lea­rned of the death of Hooker’s daughter; two letters, that have not been found, from W. Hooker to M, 3 December 1863 and 25 December 1863, that are referred to in M to W. Hooker, 24 February 1864 could not have arrived by the time this letter was written.
2
Bentham & Hooker (1862–83).
3
The anonymous reviewer [Daniel Oliver?] pointed out that preparing the Flora of Australia required access to collections made since the European discovery of Australia and held in British and European Museums. He commented ‘Of these and other drawbacks, Dr Mueller was fully sensible, and acting up to his convictions, he unhesitatingly withdrew all claims to the authorship of a work, for which he had made extensive preparations, and to the publication of which he had long looked forward as the height of his ambition … he earnestly recommended the acceptance of [Bentham’s] offer … and further proposed that £100 of the Colonial grant annually made to him for his own publications … be transferred … and made arrangements to transmit the whole of his magnificent Herbarium by installments to Kew, to aid in the preparation of the work, for which he has uninterruptedly continued to labour with as much zeal as if it were his own’ ([Oliver] (1863) pp. 500-1).
4
M to D. Oliver, 25 December 1863; Oliver was the botanical editor of the journal.

Please cite as “FVM-64-01-24b,” 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 25 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/64-01-24b