8/4/68
It is at a late hour, dear Mr Gunn, that I reply to your friendly letter & that I thank you for the trouble you took in looking up the specimens of Villarsia Gunnii. They are excellent. The seeds are ripe & I can thus complete my description. I am too fatigued to enter into the details of a discussion at this moment in reference to such difficult a question as that of limiting species and varieties. But I trust providence will spare me the next summer, when I intend visiting Tasmania and when one of the greatest enjoyments to me will be to roam with the veteran phytographic Explorer of the island through some of its wilds. I saw in my 7 or 8 alpine journeys (all of some weeks duration) a series of varieties of many species, which do not generally occur in your island and I believe had I had the benefit of your company in the Australian Alps you would have conceded a somewhat wider limit to the species which in V.D.L.1 occur less variably.
I have myself observed, that not full justice is done in the Flor. Austr2 to your own great merits, nor to Dr Milligan. Of this want of acknowledgement I must plead entire innocence, but as your original specimens are deposited at Kew I will in some delicate manner draw Mr Benthams attention to this shortcoming.3
With regardful salutation your
Ferd. von Mueller.
Villarsia Gunnii
Please cite as “FVM-68-04-08,” 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