From Ferdinand von Mueller to Joseph Hooker   15 Jan 1869

On board of the Southern Cross

15/1/68.¹

These lines, dear Dr Hooker, I write on board of the Steamer, which brings me back from a short excursion to Tasmania, which lovely island I at last in the 22 year of my stay in Australia, I was able to visit for a few days. A sudden occasion arose, to free myself for two weeks from the duties of my office and I gladly seized on this brief interval of rest to render myself personally acquainted with the vegetation of Tasmania and to seek invigoration of my health in the pure bracing air of its mountains. The low land vegetation of the island being so extensively alike with that of the continent, I felt more particularly attracted by the alpine vegetation and being anxious to avoid for the sake of rest to my mind all sociality, I struck out after a hurried journey from Launceston to Hobarton² at once to the higher mountain regions forcing my way to Mount Field East, a mountain range not phytologically explored before. I could not hope to add any actually unknown plants to those known through the zeal of Mr Gunn, Dr Milligan and Mr Archer, but I was anxious to extend our knowledge of the range of the species over the island. For this purpose in so short a visit as mine, Mt Field seemed to afford the best opportunity. Its situation being almost midway between Lake St Clair & Mt Wellington, and also remote from Mt Laperouse.³ Hence I passed the western mountains, thus depriving myself of a visit to Mr W. Archer, and also passed Georgetown, where the Rev. J Fereday expected me on a visit, deferring a ramble with these excellent friends for a future time of leisure. The surveyors track to Mt Field was all but obliterated it not having been traversed for 17 years. But accompanied by three good bushmen of the vicinity, Mess Rayner, we managed to mark it anew and reached the summit of the range after nearly a days ascent. It is quite as high as Mt Wellington and in as much as it is an inland locality it is at the same altitude considerably colder than Mt Wellington, the temperature of which is much mitigated by the warm sea air. On the rivulets at the base I found among plants not occuring in the continent of Australia Aristolochia peduncularis.⁴ Podocarpus asplenifolia⁵ Anopterus glandulosa. To see these and many other of the other endemic plants of Tasmania on this occasion for the first time in their native grace and to trace them to their geological relation, had to me an inexpressible charm. I shall not refer on this occasion to the geological data, because the⁶ involve large questions, cautiously to be submitted to lengthened observations, the results of which I trust later in life to make the material for a special memoir, which may prove acceptable to the Geologic Society.⁷ On the base of Mt Field I noticed also Solanum vescum, indisputably distinct from S. aviculare. It is therefore like in Gipps Land also in Tasmania an inland plant, altho' it prefers as a rule coastrigious forets⁸ localities. I did not see Solanum aviculare, but probably both species are in the island. The settlers discern well between the two species, regarding (as already pointed out a dozen years ago in my paper on the Gunyang⁹) the berries of the one species edible and harmless, but those of the other acrid and poisonous. In my lithograms S. vescum is fairly illustrated.¹⁰

At the hight of 2000' Scaevola Hookeri, Utricularia uniflora Rubus Gunni,¹¹ Astelia alpina, Helichrysum antennarium, Hierochloa antarctica and Myosotis suaveolens made their appearance. Telopea truncata grows also upwards to this hight but avoids the colder regions I camped with my companions for two nights on the summit of the range, to examine the alpine vegetation closely. It was better to concentrate my exertions for the three days allotted to the excursion, rather to the examination of one mountain tract, than to advance hurriedly to an other also, which I might have done, because when once the high altitudes are reached and the fern tree ranges are no longer to be traversed, progress is comparatively easy, if the traveller avoids descents and maintains a course on the summit of the mountains. At about 3000' Euphrasia striata, Richea sprengeloides, Richea acerosa, Richea Gunni¹² and Richea scoparia & B[ellendena] montana, Drosera Arcturi made their appearance, also Epacris serpillifolia¹³ and several allied species, the dwarf mountain variety of Sprengelia incarnarta, flowering already at the hight of 1 inch, especially when growing out of the cushions of Abrotonella forsteroides¹⁴ and Pterygopappus Lawrenci.¹⁵ Orites acicularis, which has a slightly yellowish hue, and Orites revoluta are at hights from 3-4000' common, but Orites diversifolia likes to grow in rather lower localities. — Pernettia Tasmanica, Cyathodes dealbata and Pentachondra pumila creep over the sphagneta. Helichrysum Backhous[e]i, H. baccharoides and H. [ ]¹⁶ are also frequent on these in the winter snowy hight. On the second day we descended to Lake Fenton, an alpine water of about 3 miles length and one mile width, which bears the name of¹⁷ Capt. Fenton, one of the oldest and most respected residents of the island and formerly Speaker of the Council at whose hospitable home I spent one night on my retour-journey.

The features of the 5 alpine lakes of this locality, of which only three are mapped, was quite novel to me. In the Australian Alps I found nowhere water collecting in highplaced basins and New Zealand, where these alpine lakes are predominent, I had never the good fortune to visit.¹⁸ Lake Fenton is situated rather below 3000'; yet the coldness of its surrounding mountains render the vegetation of its banks quite alpine, while in the Australian Mountains no alpine plants occur below 4500', a rule to which even Scleranthus biflorus, a basalt plant, bears only rarely an exception. Descending to Lake Fenton I met Arthrotaxis imbricata and A. selaginoides, Richea dracophylla, which will attain a hight of 20' and that most glorious of all Epacrideous plants Richea pandanifolia. My companions assured me, that this noble palm-like tree, which reminds us much of the tall Cordylines of New Zealand, assumes in the rich vallies on the base of Mt Styx a hight of 75 feet! Its flowers I found frequently bright red, a character which amongs it congeners it seems to have in common only with Richea scoparia. One of its cardinal characteristics is omitted in the Flora of Australia, namely that the flowers are axillary.¹⁹ Emerging from between the leaves they give, when deep red, to the tree an indescribably beautiful appearace.

I noticed also the persistens of the seed vessels along the stem to the h[e]ight of 12', a lenght representing many years growth, both seedvessels and leaves separating very tardily. On lake Fenton I saw Diplaspis cordifolia, Actinotus bellidioides, Mitrasacme Archeri (if I rightly recognized the difference from M. montana) and what gave me most delight Donatia Novae Zelandiae.²⁰ The bright green cushions strewed over with [p]early white flowers are indeed most beautiful and might well the patterns of Ladys embroideries. On the shallow marginal bottom of the Lake I caught Isoetes humilior, a remarkably rigid plant, on which my companions at once very graphically bestowed the name "Water Porcupine" The 3 other Tasm. species, so well described by Prof Alex Braun last year in the papers of the Berlin Academy of sciences,²¹ I met not in this journey Baekea Gunni,²² Aster ledifolius, A. obcordatus and A. pinifolius are common in many highland localities. Searching carefully the alpine plateaux and vallies on my return I was rewarded with finding Diselma Archeri, Microcachrys tetragona, Podocarpus alpina²³ Ourisia integrifolia (here however far rarer than on Mt Wellington) Caltha introloba, and a cushion-forming everlasting which bears resemblance to Antennaria nubigena and has also half diclinous flower-heads but produces scapes a few inches long. Eucalyptus urnigera E Gunni²⁴ and E. coccifera are noticed on the cold summits, but I did not see E. vernicosa. Coprosma nitida and C. [ ]²⁵ occur in many localities between 3-4000', so also Leptospermum rupestre²⁶

Abrotonella forsteroides

Actinotus bellidioides

Anopterus glandulosa

Antennaria nubigena

Aristolochia peduncularis

Arthrotaxis imbricata

Arthrotaxis selaginoides

Astelia alpina

Aster ledifolius

Aster obcordatus

Aster pinifolius

Baekea Gunni

Bellendena montana

Caltha introloba

Coprosma nitida

Cyathodes dealbata

Diplaspis cordifolia

Diselma Archeri

Donatia Novae Zelandiae

Drosera Arcturi

Epacris serpillifolia

Eucalyptus coccifera

Eucalyptus Gunni

Eucalyptus urnigera

Eucalyptus vernicosa

Euphrasia striata

Hierochloa antarctica

Helichrysum antennarium

Helichrysum baccharoides

Helichrysum Backhousei

Isoetes humilior

Leptospermum rupestre

Microcachrys tetragona

Mitrasacme Archeri

Mitrasacme montana

Myosotis suaveolens

Orites acicularis

Orites diversifolia

Orites revoluta

Ourisia integrifolia

Pentachondra pumila

Pernettia Tasmanica

Podocarpus alpina

Podocarpus asplenifolia

Pterygopappus Lawrenci

Richea acerosa

Richea dracophylla

Richea Gunni fn written

Richea panadanifolia

Richea scoparia

Richea sprengeloides

Rubus Gunni

Scaevola Hookeri

Scleranthus biflorus

Solanum aviculare

Solanum vescum

Sprengelia incarnarta

Telopea truncata

Utricularia uniflora