To Joseph Hooker   23 April 1866

St Georges Day 1866

 

I send off, dear Dr Hooker, by this mail 140 sp. Australian seeds just lying bye. As I am in ignorance of what Kew already possesses of Austr. plant[s], it is of course entirely guess work to select. Still I think some of the seeds will prove acceptable & the rest may be useful to some other garden. A more extensive consignment of seeds will be put for you in readiness when the harvest is quite completed. As yet singularly few of the Australian plants ofthis garden, though the seeds have been sent so often, have found a place in the botan. Magazine.

I have been excessively busy in garden work of late. For the first time the lake dried out & hence I turned to to get islands raised, dams thrown up &c &c. In my report of 1866 which I presented to Parliament& which I trust will be printed in time for the next mail I have given a full record of all recent improvements.1 I was under the impression, that a lot of Algae had been sent in one of my boxes to Kew for the Rev A. Leighton.2 However the parcel must have erroneously gone elsewhere. I will now send at an early opportunity a lot lying in readiness for being sent away.

I wished you could see the graceful festoons of Tetragonia implexicoma which cover my iron-bowers. What a glorious plant it will prove for the Mediterranean. The Mniarum or rather Scleranthus biflorus should form one of the principle plants for edgings almost anywhere. It has splendidly stood through the summer, when all Spergula failed. It might be grown in Lapponia.3

I have sent to Dul[au] for the first fascicle of your lamented fathers synopsis filicum,4 but it did not arrive yet. Is it not actually within purchase?

I am carrying on a series of distillations of timber. The produce of Tar, [Acids], naphtha &c seems very gratifying. So we can give a number of poor people work in our stringybark-ranges. Many samples from my laboratory will go in sufficient quantity to Paris,5 as to allow Kew also to be supplied. Some of the Calladia6 received from you have turned out magnificent; so also some Cacti.

Ever your

Ferd. Mueller

 

Calladia

Mniarum

Scleranthus biflorus

Spergula

Tetragonia implexicoma

 
1
M's report was never published and has not been found. See also M to J. Hooker, 24 May 1866 (in this edition as 66-05-24b).
2
See M to W. Hooker, 24 June 1865; M to W. Leighton, 26 July 1865.
3
i.e. Lapland.
4
Hooker & Baker (1868).
5
Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1867. See Royal Commissioners for Victoria (1867), p. 17, for a list of such products displayed by M in Paris, and afterwards presented to France's Minister for Public Instruction.
6
MS annotation: '(Caladia)'.

Please cite as “FVM-66-04-23,” 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/66-04-23