To John Balfour   21 September 1866

Melbourne bot Garden

21/9/66

 

I rejoyced, dear Prof Balfour, to see the experiment of transmitting plants in calico-covered Cases attended with such perfect success,1 & am grateful that our intelligent friendly Dr Madden2 bestowed so much friendly care on the experiment. I will bring these cases now frequently into transit.

I am now preparing a large collection of terrestrial orchids melanthaceous and liliaceous plants for transmission to the coldhouses of Kew & Edinburgh & trust you will cause any species new to Europe to be figured in some periodical. The interchange of these lovely plants is attended with no real difficulty nor do I think that by care the plants will be lost again.

I have also tubers of the charming large flowered Droserae secured.

By excavations during the last dry season I have reclaimed a tract of several acres of previously inundated land in the Lake of my garden & transformed it into a pleasure forest. What would be delightful is this, if of Trientalis, Majanthemum, Lysimachia vulgaris, L. thyrsiflora, Circaeae, [Gentianae]3, Parnassia, and any other forest or moor plant seeds in some quantity could be secured during the excursions you are instituting.4 These lovely plants could undoubtedly all be rendered wild here. I have planted into this pleasure forest 200 large fern trees, many fifty years old, also Xanthorrhoeae of great age & hight, which move perfectly as well as Zamiae stems.

I am immodest enough to make an other request; could not in a little water-tight box or tub roots of Iris Pseudacorus, Stratiotes aloides, Butomus umbellatus, Hottonia palustris, Sagittaria sagittifolia and other noble water plants and roots (or seeds?) of Menyanthes trifoliata, Lysimachia thyrsiflora Utricularia &c and other swamp plants be transmitted, when some intelligent passenger proceeds hither. Acorus Calamus, Nuphar luteum & Nymphaea alba I have, and Lythrum Salicaria is indigenous.

Seeds of Lychnis flos-Cuculi would be also nice.

I could in exchange send you roots of Ottelia ovalifolia, Villarsia parnassifolia &c &c &c

Have you Manihot in cultivation. As yet this important plant has not reached Australia.5

I wished our interchanges could be more frequent, they would advance much the mutual interest of our departments.

Has your R.S. a complete set of my works? If not I will gladly complete it. I am just about finishing the 5 vol of my fragmenta.6

your attached

Ferd Mueller

 

Acorus

Calamus

Butomus umbellatus

Circaea

Drosera

Gentiana

Hottonia palustris

Iris Pseudacorus

Lychnis flos-cuculi

Lysimachia thyrsiflora

Lysimachia vulgaris

Lythrum

Salicaria

Majanthemum

Manihot

Menyanthes trifoliata

Nuphar luteum

 
1
See Transactions of the Botanical Society. of Edinburgh, vol. 8 (1866), pp. 482-4. Proceedings of 14 June 1866; for details see notes to M to J Hooker, 14 September 1866.
2
Henry Madden. Swiftsure , on which Madden returned to the United Kingdom, cleared out of Melbourne on 21 February 1866 ( Argus , 22 February 1866, p. 4).
3
editorial addition — word partly obscured.
4
For the role of Balfour's long excursions see Allen (2000), p. 354, and Balfour (1908).
5
M had been asking for Manihot plants since at least M to J. Hooker, 25 December 1865 )in this edition as 65-12-25e), and in M to C. von Martius, 25 Decenber 1865 (in this edition as 65-12-25b), he thanked von Martius for advice and warnings about its potential toxicity. In M to J. Hooker 25 October 1866 (in this edition as 66-10-25c), he thanked Hooker for the supply of living material.
6
The final parts were published in December 1866.

Please cite as “FVM-66-09-21,” 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 20 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/66-09-21