To Joseph Hooker   25 April 1868

25/4/68

 

I have only leisure, dear Dr Hooker, to write a few lines by this mail. But I wish to thank you sincerely for your attentive goodness in getting the Edinburgh plants named. It is now 21 years since I left Middle Europe, and plants then familiar to me, I cannot now without careful reference (at least in many instances) refer to their specific position. I have reflected again and again on your proposal to secure duplicates from Gay's collection,1 but I have no departmental vote for the purpose and after spending about £7000 of my slender private means in the Department I could, with fluctuating health, not well spend more. This is the reason also, that finally I could not manage to secure, as I so much desired, one of the three sets of Mr Smiths ferns.2

You speak in your letter of your obligations and cares as the head of a family.3 True the cares must be great, but you can at least calmly look forward to the moment when those dear to you will surround your deathbed, (may the day be very very distant) — and after all there is no better investment of a fortune than bringing up a family, and I trust you will have D. C. gratification of seeing a Hooker, nepos, come forward in the botanic world.4

Mr Bennett & Mr Kippist have expressed a wish that I should contribute the new Australian species to R.Br's collection in the British Museum.5 You will be aware, that I all along thought Linne's,6 Banks's, Brown's &c collections could be only brought to their maximum utility at Kew.7 At the same time it would appear, that many metropolitan phytographers can not afford to visit your glorious emporium frequently and that to them the phytologic division of the British Museum is a real boon. So long therefore as such a branch exists in the great national Museum, I feel bound to support it and under these considerations I would be quite willing to concede to the collections of the Brit. Museum one specimen of any plant not at all possessed by them when it can be spared from my collection, as often will be the case. But I really have no leisure to go through the tedious task of picking out odds & ends, moreover I do not know the exact requirement of the British Museum

On reflection it has occurred to me, that Mr Carruthers might deem it worth while to select specimens from my collections at Kew prior to the return of the specimens to me. As however such an arrangement could not be entered into without a special acquiescence of yours, I bring my idea just for consideration before you, without without8 writing to Mr Bennett or Mr Kippist at all, leaving the whole affair in your power, to refuse or concur as you think proper. There are perhaps inconveniences in such an arrangement, which I should most distinctly be disinclined to burden on your Department

Always your regardful

Ferd von Mueller

 

Will Dr Th. Thomson & yourself be able to do justice to the Indian Flora without visiting the Leyden Museum?9

I had only a few plants of the Bermuda Cedar, not yet fully bearing. So the seeds were very welcome.

After spending about £7000 of my private means in this department & giving away as a donation my whole private collection, I cannot well purchase plants out of private means & have no departmental vote for the purpose.10

 
1
Joseph Hooker purchased Jacques Gay's herbarium for Kew for £400 in 1867 or 1868. See Huxley (1918) vol. 2, p. 48. The proposal that M purchase duplicates has not been found.
2
In 1865, John Smith (1798-1888) offered his fern general herbaria for sale (see G. Bentham to M, 18 October 1865). In 1866, the British Museum bought 2,000 species of ferns on 6,000 sheets (see Smith's obituary, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London[1887-8], p. 97).
3
Letter not found.
4
Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841) was succeeded by his son Alphonse (1806-93). Hooker was succeeded as director at Kew by his son-in-law, W. T. Thiselton-Dyer.
5
Letters not found.
6
The herbaria assembled by Banks and by Brown were at the British Museum; that of Linnaeus at the Linnean Society.
7
See, for example M to J. Hooker, 17 March 1860, and Lindley et al. (1858).
8
repeated word in MS.
9
Hooker and Thomson did not complete their Flora Indica (1855). The work that finally emerged, Hooker (1875-97), contains an explanation of the delay in completion of the intended work. See also Huxley (1918) vol. 2, p. 18 for Hooker's complaint that Thomson 'will never do a stroke' of the work. In mid-nineteenth-century usage, 'India' often embraced all the territories in which the East India Company was active and thus included Sumatra and Singapore, for comprehending the botany of which the Dutch collections were essential. In line with this usage Hooker and Thomson (1855), p. 8 declared that the limits of the Flora indica on which they had embarked extended from Persia to the Chinese dominions.
10
'After spending ...for the purpose' is written on a separate, smaller sheet bound as f. 319.

Please cite as “FVM-68-04-25,” 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 29 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/68-04-25