To Joseph Hooker1    26 May 1869

26/5/69

 

The Kent, dear Dr Hooker, which brings this letter, brings you also the huge Todea, desired by you. It is fresh from mount macedon,2 and the creature is one of the largest I ever saw. Its removal from the deep gorges of the range was not accomplished without difficulty. It must be over hundred years old, perhaps it is much older. It requires to be put with the base into water. I believe these huge ferns, which are here also sub-alpine, will stand the frost of the South of England in mild sheltered glens!

This day I had a kind letter from Sir Henry Barkly,3 from which I learn, that I was quite right in my anticipation, that the honor of being a member of the newly reorganized St Mich. & St. George's order, was largely owing to your favorable representations of my services in Australia.4 Accept my best thanks for your generous goodness. But how is it, that your great merits & Mr Benthams & Prof Owens remained quite unrecognized by any distinguish[ing] gift from the throne? Have these ranks no charms to you?5 I should have thought that were6 a Lady enhances the value of such possessions that tokens of distinction would be doubly prized

Yours with regardful attachment

Ferd. von Mueller.

1
MS annotation: 'And with case of [Bamboos] Sept [2]/69'. No letter from J. Hooker to M dated 2 September 1869 has been found, but M to J. Hooker, 6 November 1869 (in this edition as 69-11-06a) may be an answer to it.
2
Vic.
3
Letter not found.
4
See notes to M to H. C. Manners-Sutton 22 February 1879 (in this edition as 69-02-22a) and M to J. Hooker 27 February 1869 (in this edition as 69-02-27a). Hooker had been lobbying for some time for a knighthood for M (see J. Hooker to H. Barkly, 27 July 1866, in this edition as M66-07-27); M had been placed on the 1864 list of those to be given the title of Knight Bachelor in the list drawn up to mark the marriage of the Prince of Wales, but Queen Victoria did not approve of marking the marriage of her estranged son in this way, and M remained on the 'arrears list' in 1868 (Lucas 2013a).
5
Hooker was ambivalent about accepting honours: see Lucas 2013a.
6
where?

Please cite as “FVM-69-05-26a,” 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 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/69-05-26a