Melbourne bot Garden
24/11/64
My dear Sir William
The arrival of your kind letters gives me always great pleasure and so did yours of the 10 Sept,1 reaching me within the last days. I feel sorry to learn that Mr Burrows had not been more successful with his plants and I would never for a moment thought to entrust them to his care could I have foreseen they should have been lost by frost. A small case like that might have been easily for provided during the few cold weeks rounding Cape Horn in placing it near the Cook's store.2
I have tried to avoid the southern latitudes for my plants the Suez line, but invariably without success & really have no courage to send any thing more of living plants. There are about 12 plants here in cultivation, mostly natives of Victoria, which would make charming pot-plants, and these I should have been glad Kew to possess & to diffuse abroad permanently. As regards ferns I am so sorry having burdened on you what has proved an onerous task, for nothing could have been further from my intention. It merely appeared to me a very great pity, that you, my dear Sir William, should not have the advantage of the perusal of my collections for your synopsis,3 as from them the range of the species may in many instances be learned. It seemed a pity, I say, because in your admirable species filicum4 you have often given a solitary station of a fern of one or the other of the Australian colonies whereas they are in some instances distributed widely over the country. Perhaps cautiously you were reluctant to trust to mere notes on the distribution of plants & hence I thought it best to send the whole collection, imagining that as the species are well known you would at least in the majority of cases deal with them at sight. If notes were sufficient, I am under the impression that my manuscripts deposited at Kew would have furnished many additional indications of stations. So I can truely say, that my sole object in sending the ferns was to serve your work, which ought on this point to be as complete as possible.5
But as you never asked for my ferns I will be quite content to wait for the return until you at your leisure have done with them. With this mail I send about a dozend more, which are new to Australia, altho' seemingly only one new to science. I fell into an error in sending Antrophyum planetagineum as Grammitis lanceolata; this was done before I examined the plant. If you desire it, I will send you the whole of the specimens I have left, as in letters I can only send fragments That the Carices came back (damaged) in the box which suffered so severely in the Sussex I mentioned before.6
I have been suffering since several weeks from a severe attack of Bronchitis, & dont like it hanging so long about me. So probably I shall be obliged to keep the bed for some time.
Trusting that you are in enjoyment of full health & wishing you every blessing of providence I remain, dear Sir William,
your faithfully attached
Ferd. Mueller.
Antrophyum planetagineum
Carex
Grammitis lanceolata
Please cite as “FVM-64-11-24d,” 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/64-11-24d