To [Joseph Hooker]1    31 December 1866

Newyearseve

1866-67.

 

I send a few lines as a late salutation to the new year. The last mail has taken to you lots of Orchid tubers & this one brings the rest. Why cannot these lovely plants be brought regularly under cultivation. How interesting a collection of terrestrial Orchids would be if comprising species from all parts of the globe.

Anthisth[i]ria australis is, as you surmised, A. ciliata & to it also belongs A. glauca of the Mediterranean! The main character has been overlooked namely its 3 valvate or rather its 3 sepalate flowers. A avenacea has 4 sepals.

I mistook a wrong grass for the Panicum alluded to by Colonel Munro & described now his grass as P. Munroi.2 Still it seems to me foreign to the genus. I had just to examine some grasses for the Exhibition3 & thus plunged for a day or two into Gramineae & thus also it often happens, that my varied official calls draw my attention at a sudden moment to plants on which I otherwise should not work at the time. You will probably find it just so at Kew, unless there you can allot such work to subordinates

Mr Bentham cuts the genera down unmercifully. I fear our great phytographer goes too far. Pray tell him, that poor Mr Tozer, who discovered the Pithecolobium & met at the occasion with such severe accident by the fall of his horse is dead.4 I had just a touching letter from his widow.5 — Should not arrangements be made for the Cryptogamic workers on the flora Austr. at once? It is true poor Harveys Algae may be simply translated as no important additions have been obtained But Musci, Lichenastra, Lichens & Fungi require special new work, and this much is certain, such a cryptogamic volume could not be finished so speedily as a phanerogamic one. To the genus Helmholtzia I must direct your special attention.6

 

Algae

Anthisthiria australis

Anthisthiria avenacea

Anthisthiria ciliata

Anthisthiria glauca

Fungi

Gramineae

Helmholtzia

Lichen

Lichenastra

Musci

Panicum Munroi

Pithecolobium

 
Correspondent inferred from reference to sending Orchid tubers; see M to J. Hooker, 25 December 1866 (in this edition as 66-12-25d).
B66.12.04, p. 204.
Intercolonial Exhibition of Australasia, Melbourne, 1866-7.
See M to G. Bentham, undated 1863 letter (in this edition as 63-00-00d).
Letter not found.
The letter ends without valediction at the bottom of the back of f. 151 as bound (letter is bound back to front).

Please cite as “FVM-66-12-31a,” 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 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/66-12-31a