Melbourne botanic Garden
9/2/71.
In accordance with your request, dear Dr Hooker, a grand effort has been made to drag a monster-fern (Todea Africana) out of the back gullies of Mount Macedon.2 These ravines are very deep and when I say that this fern is likely to weigh 1500 [lb] you can depicture to yourself, what the work has been to drag it out with slades,3 horses, oxen, many mens labor and consummate skill. Great credit is due to Messr. Smith of Riddells Creek in carrying out these arrangements, they having first moved Todeas for me and on my suggestion before these monsterferns came into the trade of export. You will be proud of this particular Todea, now shipped by the Norfolk, because it is the largest specimen ever seen by any one and not likely surpassed by any others in existence, if indeed equalled. I regret that neither my own worldly means or those of my almost ruined department do admit of sending you this fern gratuitously; but as you authorized me to expend £10 (ten) towards obtaining such a monster, I have sent you a receipt for that sum from Mess Smith.4 The cost would have been far more, had not Linden given an order for a number of large Todeas, (now known after my exportations) to Mess Smith — Hence a regular costly5 arrangement could be made and as I bought some myself and others were sold here, the affair could be managed comparatively cheaply.6 A single Zamia spiralis is put into one of the sinus of the Todea, and more could have been put, but I had none of size and the weight of the case would still have increased
Be so friendly to pay the £10 over to my private Agents, Mess. Blackith & Co; Cox's Quay, Lower Thames Street, London.
It might be well to ascertain the exact weight of the Todea, when well watered in, and the weight of the fronds afterwards by calculation. The freight must be paid in London. If you record this in the Bot. Magazine, I trust you will not forget to give me credit for having set the Todea trade going like many other horticultural concerns.7 An act of justice like this helps supporting my horticultural position, and thus my London friends should not have allowed to let my last report on the Garden to remain ignored by the Gardeners Chronicle. Such people as the travelling Veitch have done much towards the damaging of my Directorship here by the offhand and thoughtless way in which he wrote about my garden, and not showing even so much fairness afterwards to make his shortcomings publicly good again.8
The persecution towards me still continues, and what the feelings of a highminded man must be, who spent his best years, his property & all his time in his Department, you best of all can imagine.
Mr Edw. Wilson and Mr MacKinnon in London might have much done to avert all this undeserved misery from me, by interdicting timely the persecution of the Argus against me.9
Always your regardful
Ferd. von Mueller.10
Todea Africana
Zamia spiralis
The following text is on a piece of blue paper glued to the back of f. 7:
Size of Todea
Largest ft in
Todea 7 9 wide
5 8 high
3 3 through
Arrived in London on the 9th June 1871 & forwarded to Messrs Booth, of Hamburgh Direct. J. S.
The text of the dimensions is in an unknown hand; the arrival details, written to the right of the tabulation, are an annotation by John Smith (1821-88). See also M to J. Hooker, 29 August 1871 (in this edition as 71-08-29b).
Please cite as “FVM-71-02-09b,” 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 24 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/71-02-09b