To William Branwhite Clarke   18 October 1864

18/10/64.

Venerable and dear friend.

I feel some reluctance to hazard on the systematic position of the plant, of which you sent me a sketch of leaves, any opinion.

In candor I must confess, that the evidence in general on the precise specific characters of vegetable fossils is so slender, as to deter me from the hopeless task of applying with rigor to them those principles on which the discrimination of living plants is based.

Even if I had an opportunity of subjecting the specimens themselfes, you refer to, to a microscopic inspection, I fear I should fail to throw on them, as long as they are leaves alone, any light satisfactorily. Perhaps remnants of flowers or fruits may be found with the leaves, when at once we could enter on the clear elucidation of the subject.

Has ever anything be done in effecting the section at Stoney Creek? strata?1

I have in a little work on the plants of the Chatham Islands,2 which I shall have great happiness of sending to you within the next days for your clement judgement, deposited in a few words my entire disapproval of the transmutation theory.

With cordiality, reverend & esteemed Sir,

yr

Ferd Mueller

See M to W. B. Clarke, 10 November 1863 and 2 February 1864.
B64.13.02.

Please cite as “FVM-64-10-18,” 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 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/64-10-18