From Joseph Hooker   8 December 1869

Kew Decr 8 /69

My dear Mueller

I have your's asking for Veratrum album & viride; ¹ I had already given orders for their being sent to you & we are also waiting until they shall be quite dorm. & then we shall pack the album & viride if strong enough in a little damp moss & send it overland in a box with holes bored in the side. The roots seem to be of a sort that should travel after this fashion — & if this fails we shall try again. The worst of a Wards case (or Wards Coffin as I now call them) is that these must be sent in summer, when the growing season has begun, & that then temperate plants make such tremendous & weakening growth in the tropics that they die after removal from the case.

I am most anxious to hear how the Sarracenias will arrive & shall hope to hear in time to send a box in this mid-winter season, which may be better than that in which we sent before. You must pot them in peat & a little loam, & keep them very cool & shaded but where they get plenty of air. I have great fears of their succeeding with you.

Eriophorum I sent a good tuft of I think in two cases, but I have not much hope of it.

I do wish could establish an exchange of small (hand) cases (Ward's) by overland & under careful private hands who would not desert them at Egypt, but bring them through France & Italy to England. Many a case is brought safe to Suez or Alexandria & destroyed on the passage thence home to England.

The Todea is growing vigorously, & will make a grand show by next summer. We have abundance of Dicksonia antarctica Alsophila australis & Cyathea medullaris but we want good small trunks of the other Australian Tree ferns. I think I have asked you to try some of 2-4 feet in dry Saw dust (like the Todea) with the fronds not cut off but turned down on the stem.² We have 4 or 5 good Xanthorrhoeas of 4 feet apiece from K. G. Sound, & one from Queensland.

Who is a Mr O'Shanesy who has just sent me some seeds from Queensland?

Bentham is pretty well again, he had a most severe attack of Rheumatism & Sciatica which has pulled him down very by much — he is now busy with Chenopodieae.

I suppose that the Cinchonas never grew with you.

Eucalyptus polyanthemus is the only one that will stand an ordinary winter with us — We have tried scores of others.

Most try Yrs³

Jos D Hooker

Alsophila australis

Chenopodieae

Cinchona

Cyathea medullaris

Dicksonia antarctica

Eriophorum

Eucalyptus polyanthemus

Sarracenia

Todea

Veratrum album

Veratrum viride

Xanthorrhoea