To Joseph Hooker1    4 June 1869

4/6/69

 

A few days ago, dear Dr Hooker, I have sent you a large Todea.2 It required 2 bullock teams and slades3 to be dragged out of the back gullies of Mt Macedon,4 40 miles from here. It is the largest, which I ever sent to Europe! I hope you will give me a generous reciprocate.

It may be many months before it forms new fronds, & requires bottom heat (gentle) at first and plenty of water. Indeed the base ought always to stand in water.

I hope you got through a friend who was to pass St Helena,5 abundance of living plants from Diana's Peak. Few St Helena plants seem to be in cultivation.

Is it not unfortunate, that the "Borer" exist already in the Australian sugar-plantations! Sir Henry Barkly found the last sending thus attacked on the voyage, the last sent by poor Dr Meller.6

The seeds of Epacrideae from N.S. Wales and Tasmania are promised. These plants are not easily raised from seed & difficult to cultivate. If you could raise Stenanthera conostephoides, it would be a magnificent acquisition to European Conservatories

Always your

Ferd von Mueller

 

I must try to find means to send you for the Museum a turf of Scleroleima dried in an oven.7

8I have again urged on Mr Abott to send you the Abrotanella forsteroides not only dried for the Museum as a specimen patch, but also in a close case a living specimen for your alpine Garden plot. It ought to travel quite well if not packed too wet.

 

Abrotanella forsteroides

Epacrideae

Scleroleima

Stenanthera conostephoides

Todea

 
1
MS annotation: 'Noted/J.S.' (i.e. John Smith (1821-88)).
2
M to J. Hooker, 26 May 1869 (in this edition as 69-05-26a).
3
and slades interlined.sleds?
4
Vic.
5
Person not indentified.
6
Charles Meller died in Berrima, NSW, on 26 February 1869, on a visit to collect different varieties of sugar cane for cultivation on Mauritius (Sydney morning herald, 11 March 1869, p. 1). Letter from Barkly not found.
7
I must … in an oven’ marginal note.
8
The remaining text is written on f. 386, which is annotated in pencil 'Ward case for Mueller [going] [a] [20th] Bamboos (Spec.)'; '& [Bromelias?]. The annotation may refer to the consignment of Bromeliads and Bamboo sent per Essex which left London on 23 August and arrived in Melbourne on 10 November 1869, carrying ‘4 cases of plants, Dr von Mueller’ (Argus, 11 November 1869, p. 4); see M to J. Hooker, 6 November 1869 (in this edition as 69-11-06a) and 4 December 1869 (in this edition as 69-12-04a). No letter from Hooker written in August 1869 survives.

Please cite as “FVM-69-06-04,” 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/69-06-04