Melb. bot Garden
28/4/68.
Sir
The grass, enclosed in your letter of the 241 being destitute of flowers cannot be named.
I will be happy to furnish plants of the maritime Fir, for the Warrnambool town council, as it would be hopeless to raise these pines locally from seeds, unless such seeds were entrusted to a skilled gardener. If an extensive tract was to be sown such should be ploughed and fenced for altho growing in sand this pine could not be raised in sand, which would suffocate the young seedlings. The ploughing might be effected near the drift sand. Be so kind to inform me what area the Council intends to plough or to plant, and also what protection would be afforded against goats, cows and other domestic animals, as well as against the traffic, and whether there are any means of watering the young pines during the hot months of the year.
Obediently your
Ferd. v. Mueller.
If the grass sent me is a native one, it is likely Festuca litoralis.2 This might be dug up and planted into localities, on which the sand requires to be arrested, together with couch grass and any other native plant vegetating in sand.3
Festuca litoralis
H. Read to M, 24 April 1868 (in this edition as 68-04-24a).
i.e. Festuca littoralis.
M's letter was read at a Council meeting on 12 May 1868 and referred to the Sand Committee (Borough Council records, minute book 6, p. 451). Read replied to it in H. Read to M, 15 May 1868 (in this edition as 68-05-15a).
For a published version of this letter, see Warrnambool examiner, 15 May 1868, p. 4 (B68.05.05).
Please cite as “FVM-68-04-28,” 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