17/6/69
Amidst the bustle for the outgoing mail, dear Mr Guilfoyle, I can only briefly acknowledge the receipt of your kind letter of the 12th June.1 Let me thank you for the list of the fine plants, which I received through your & your fathers kindness recently.
All the varieties of Manihot utilissima, which I ever received, proved very impatient to frost. So cuttings of a hardy kind would be quite a boon.
My collection of palms is not large. Seeds have such a short vitality & I get not many from my correspondents. I do not think I have over 50 species, some not named & of most only one specimen. In my young place none but Areca momostachya & Chamaerops humilis have flowered A Caryota closely allied to if not identical with C. urens grows certainly at Cape York. I have good specimens of it in the Museum, to which full reference will be made in the 6th vol. of the Flora.2
your very regardful
Ferd von Mueller
Manihot utilissima
Areca momostachya
Chamaerops humilis
Caryota urens
Letter not found.
Palms were not dealt with in the sixth volume of Bentham (1863-78). Caryota is dealt with in vol. 7, p. 144; the single species is listed as C. rumphiana, citing M's name C. alberti in synonymy. M's name, published by Wendland & Drude (1875), p. 221 citing an 1874 letter from M to Wendland that has not been found, is that given in APC (accessed 8 October 2024).
Please cite as “FVM-69-06-17b,” 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