Melbourne bot. Garden
15/11/69
Sir
I have the honor to request, that a set of the plants, which may have arrived by the Gulnare from Arnhem's Land,1 may be granted to my Department for continuation of the researches commenced on the vegetation of the Northern territory by myself.2
I have the honor to be, Sir, your obedient
Ferd. von Mueller.
Dr Schomburgk,
Director of the bot Garden of Adelaide
That is, the third consignment of plants from Frederick Schultze, despatched from Darwin on 28 September 1869 (Wallis (2020), p. 46).
A similar request was made in M to G. Goyder, 15 November 1869 (in this edition as 69-11-15a). M did not receive a full set of the specimens collected by F. Schultze (see M to R. Tate, 11 July 1879), but Schomburgk sent a set of about 300 specimens to George Bentham, requesting that 'if not too much trouble I would be glad to receive all the names of the plants sent'. He also asked that some be named to commemorate George Goyder and the collector Frederick Schultze, adding 'there is a third claimant for the same honour, that is, my own little self, (I may be wrong) but I may say, all that has been done was undertaken at my request … My good friend Dr Mueller thought me not worthy as yet to call an Australian plant after me.' (R. Schomburgk to G. Bentham, 3 February 1870, RBG Kew, Archives, GEB/1/9/3493; for more on the relationship between M and Schomburgk, see R. Schomburgk to G. Bentham, 16 August 1869 (in this edition as M69-08-16) and notes thereto). Bentham did not name any Australian plants after Schomburgk nor any after Goyder, but in Bentham (1863-78), vol. 7, pp. 195-6 he named Eriocaulon schultzii from specimens collected at Port Darwin.
Please cite as “FVM-69-11-15,” 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