To Joseph Hooker   13 July 1869

13/7/69

On an enclosed page,¹ dear Dr Hooker, I have mentioned the names of some of the plants from Lord Howe's Island, which Mr Ch. Moore recently collected there, and of which he kindly communicated to me a set. This collection contains also 3 palms, 2 at least of which are new and to which I intend to give with Mr Moores joint authority the names of the late and the present Minister for the Colonies.² This island needs still further examination & I am now in correspondence with Mr Moore to see how it can be accomplished. Its position and vegetation render it very remarkable and the blending of N. Z and Austr. forms is very interesting, not to speak of endemics.

There exists in the island also a new Irideous plant, but it has not been found in flower. As a dependency of N.S. Wales this island belongs to the Australian flora and so Norfolk Island. Both have besides by their vegetation stronger claims on Australia than on New Zealand. I intend to work up the details of the collection, as Mr Moore is so ill to be unable to do so and I may write a special little volume on the vegetation of this isolated little spot,³ like on the plants of the Chatham Islands.⁴

Since some time I have ready a short paper on the result of my brief visit to Tasmania, but as I had the promise of additional collections, I held the little essay back, but shall send it off now in a few weeks.⁵

In summer I shall be glad to get again away to the island, to escape at least for a week or two the Melbourne heat and dust, and as I know now how to proceed from Mt Field, I hope to plunge into the ranges of Frenchmans Cap or Mt Humboldt, the highest of the island. They may not yield anything really new, but the geology has there to be studied with the phytology & we ought at least to know what exists there.

King's Island must also have my attention. The existence of Elaeocarpus &c there is remarkable, so near to Tasmania proper

with kind regards

Ferd von Mueller

The South Australian Governm. sent a collector for the Museum and bot-Garden to Arnhems Land with their survey party.⁶ A few hundred species of plants are collected, of which a set is to be presented to my institution. You will doubtless receive one also I shall write a report on them as on Babbage's plants.⁷ So by one means & the other we get gradually acquainted with the plants of Australia. Whether Mr Forrests Governm expedition in search for Leichhardt from W. Austr, which I was instrumental to bring about,⁸ and which reflects great credit on the highmindedness of the W. A. Government —, will bring us any plants to delimit the range of species &c &c, future must prove.⁹ The Hon. F Barlee writes, that the expedition was in excellent order & high spirits when leaving the outskirts of the settlement.¹⁰ It is likely to be out 3 mo[nths]¹¹ and the heavy rains of this autumn will facilitate its movements in the desert.

Elaeocarpus