To William Hooker   25 February 1865

2[5]/2/65

 

In a collection, dear Sir William, recently arrived from Rockingham Bay, I have some noble Proteaceous trees, Grevillea Cardwellii, Grevillea Vaillantii & Helicia Darlingii, which together with some other undescribed species shall be introduced into the first fascicle of the fifth vol. of the fragmenta.1 There is also one new fern, at least new to Australia, & this I will send by next mail. This time I send two new volumes by the Governors kindness through the Despatch bag.

I hope the Ladies of Britain will second the efforts of those of Australia, who will send their emissaries in search of poor Leichhardt. The movement as novel, romantic & philanthropic will, I feel assured, enlist the sympathy of the whole intellectual world & will afford to the 162 Ladies a rare opportunity of identifying their names with an enterprise of probably great historic importance. I shall advisethe Ladies to send their manifesto all over the globe & especially to such Ladies as Miss Burdett Coutts & Miss Nightingale. Can you, venerable Sir, give me through Lady Hooker any advise?, how we could arouse the cooperation of the Ladies of Britain. If once the undertaking was well countenanced abroad our Governments here would doubtless vote annually subsequently the small subsidies, needed to keep the party in the field, until Leichhardts fate was ascertained & the western half of the continent latitudinally crossed.

The explorer will have an opportunity of showing himself grateful for all prominent aid he receives in attaching the names of his favorers to geographic features, a privilege of which in after ages he will be enveyed.

I hope in two years the whole of N. E. Australia will be made botanically known by Mr Dallachy, & little of importance will then be left to be done but tracing the range of the species. So I have the prospect & of issuing at least one more volume of the fragmenta mainly filled with new plants.

With veneration

yr

Ferd Mueller

 

The Great Brucean Meteorite is sent to the British Museum by the "Red Rover" 3

I hope you received the ferns from Rockingham4 sent a few months ago.5

 

Grevillea Cardwellii

Grevillea Vaillantii

Helicia Darlingii

1
B65.04.01. Of the three species mentioned, only Helicia darlingiana was described in this part (p. 25), but the new proteaceous genus Cardwellia (C. sublimis)was erected (pp. 23-4). IPNI does not list Grevillea vaillantii or G. cardwelii. Both were herbarium names: there is a sheet bearing M's label as G. cardwellii at Freie Universität Berlin, B_10_0295198, where it is labelled as a possible type specimen of Cardwellia sublimis; three specimens received at Kew in April 1870 (K000799954 - 6) bear M's label 'Cardwellia sublimis' and two also include a slip of paper including the note, ‘I sent this as Grevillia Cardwellii …'. There is a sheet labelled G. vaill a ntii at Martin-Luther-Universität, HAL0111125, and two in the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, MNHN-P-P02370548 and MNHN-P-P02370549.
2
In his letter to William Hooker of 24 February 1865, M mentions two ladies from each of the eight denominations but in M to W. Hooker, 25 March 1865, he describes the committee as consisting of two members from each of the seven main religious denominations. The fourteen members of the committee wereMarie Bunny, Jane Cutts, Rebecca Nordt, Sarah Harker, E Tierny, Elvina Rintel, Mary Ann G. Fraser, Eliza F. Bromby, Margaret F. Thomas, Margaret Hetherington, Mary E. Wilkie, Jane W. Embling, Elizabeth Testar and Sarah Horwitz (Maroske & Brown-May [1994], p. 45).See also PRO London, CO309/73, Original Correspondence Victoria, 1865, vol.3, Despatches, Enclosure to despatch no. 93, pp. 92-3 (Letter to C. Darling from The Ladies' Leichardt (sic)Committee).
3
See Lucas et al. (1994).
4
Rockingham Bay, Qld.
5
See M to W. Hooker, 25 October 1864.

Please cite as “FVM-65-02-25,” 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/65-02-25