To Joseph Hooker1    5 November 1871

Melbourne bot Garden

[5]/11/71

 

Am I rightly under an impression, dear Dr Hooker, that you wanted a very large Dicksonia antarctica? If so, I will be happy to place the largest of nine, shipped by the Niagara at your disposal. They are my private property, as I bore all the expenses of getting these weighty stems from the ranges; and there will be no freight due on them. My Agents will have the whole nine consigned to them. I mean Mess C. Blackith & Co. If you think it desirable to secure two for Mr Booth in Hamburg also,2 you are quite welcome to them. But as he is such a rich man, and as I must keep my small means together, to maintain also the outward dignity of my new high rank,3 the Flottbeck gentleman4 might defray the freight for the two specimens from London to Hamburg. The shipping is effected 2 month earlier than desirable, and thus these treeferns may possibly encounter yet some of your late frosts in March; but I must seize on opportunities as they offer themselves and hammer the iron while it is hot.5 It is so rarely to find an naval Gentleman ready to attend to the watering of these monsters of ferns on the voyage and it still more rarely, that the safe space (save against rats, frost and seawater) is got for such spacious individuals. As I said; I have no departmental means for such sendings, but oblige my friends as far as private resources admit of it. It might be well to ask Mr Booth at once, whether he requires these things;6 perhaps he is fully supplied and my Agent will send them off otherwise then[.] If after landing the stems for Mr Booth could go to Kew, until the frost passed, that would make the success more likely. It would be a pity, it after all the trouble and expense here, the success should be imperilled by some little short-coming in Europe.

At last this week I had a chance of sending a collector for a few days to King's Island, where a magnificent ship has just been wrecked.7 So perhaps we will have again a few additions to the flora of Tasmania.

With sincere friendship

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

The Dicksonia intended for you is 18' long. I do not think any one of larger size did reach Europe8

 

Dicksonia antarctica

1
MS annotation: 'J. S'.
2
This statement is marked in the margin with a large cross.
3
The barony conferred on M by Karl I, King of Württemberg, on 6 July 1871.
4
i.e.John Booth, proprietor of the Flottbeck nursery near Hamburg.
5
Niagara left Melbourne on 23 November 1871 and arrived in Gravesend on 2 April 1872 ( London Standard, 4 April 1872, p. 7).
6
See J. Booth to J. Hooker, 15 March 1872, RBG Kew Directors' correspondence, vol. 139, f. 64.
7
When the iron clipper ship Loch Leven ran aground on King Island in Bass Strait on 23 October 1871, vessels were sent from Melbourne to salvage the cargo ( Argus , October/November 1871, passim ). M sent one of his staff, A. C. Neate, 'who was detached on a small scientific mission to the island'. Neate returned to Melbourne aboard Coorong on 7 November 1871 ( Argus , 8 November 1871, p. 4).
8
See J Hooker to M, 22 June 1872 .

Please cite as “FVM-71-11-05,” 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 29 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/71-11-05