To John MacPherson   6 April 1870

Melbourne botan. Garden

6/4/70

Sir

I have the honor to report, that the three cases with Museum plants, obtained from Dr. W. Sonder of Hamburg, and shipped by the hon. Geo. Verdon, C. B., per "Norfolk" did just arrive safely and will form a highly valuable addition to the collections of the department.1

I have the honor to be,

Sir, your very obedient servant

Ferd. von Mueller, M.D.

Director of the botanic Garden.

 

The honorable the Chief Secretary2

1
These cases were the first instalment of the Sonder herbarium that M purchased gradually. See M to J. Moore, 3 October 1863, where M requests funds to purchase the Sonder collection, and also M to J. McCulloch, 25 September 1866 (in this edition as 66-09-25a), in which he again urges the Government to provide funds for this purchase. See also Short (1990).
2
MS file inscription in an unknown hand: 'Mr Wadsworth do you know anything of these cases?' Wadsworth replied: 'I think it is a part of Dr Sonder's collection that Dr Mueller has been so long [...] to purchase. It is paid out of Vote "Purchase of plants".' See also M to C. Duffy, 20 September 1871, in which M again urges the purchase of the entire collection.

Please cite as “FVM-70-04-06,” 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 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/70-04-06