From Joseph Hooker   April 1872

[…]1 as you suggest & of course look out for the grand fellow you have given us. He says that when the Sun shines on his Todea it emits a putrid odor — I find nothing of the sort.2 Mine is in a superb state. Fitch's outline drawing of it (in the Magazine) is miserable, & I am much annoyed about it.3 I am to take care of the Tree-ferns for Nageli till all chance of frost is over which I fancy is now the case, the spring has set in so early.4

I am very pleased to hear that the dried plants pleased you, & arrived in good condition. I am grievously hampered in that Herbarium department by the illness of one of my most active assistants.

Dr Wight has just sent to Kew his whole Herbarium! & I have also Rottlers Indian Herbarium presented by the King's College of London.5 Two most valuable additions.

Part 1. of Flora of British India,6 is on the point of publication. I shall send your name to the I. O.7 for a copy to be sent to you. I have no copies of my own. It is published by the Scy of State on the same terms as the Colonial Floras. The Govt takes 100 copies & pays the authors at the rate of £200 per 1000 species described.

Ever sincerely Yr

Jos D Hooker

 

Can you send us any Hymenophylla & Trichomanes? Established on billets of Tree fern & hung up in a Wards case tightly secured.

 

Hymenophyllum

Todea

Trichomanes

1
An unknown amount of text missing. Letter dated on the basis of Booth's letter to Hooker (see following note).
2
See J. Booth to J. Hooker, 15 March 1872 (in this edition as M72-03-15): 'Is it not wonderful that as soon as the sun shines upon this mass it gives a most disagreeable smell, like a corpse. To what is this owing?' Booth mentioned the odour again a month later. 'My Todea is thriving… but today a warm day, is — stinking more than ever, and I can not discover anything of animal matter. No Sun — no smell at all' (J. Booth to J. Hooker, 12 April 1872, RBG Directors' correspondence, vol 139, f. 65).
3
J. Hooker (1872), published March 1872.
4
Marginal annotation by M: 'Will keiner Garten sende Nageli Baumfarn.' [Will no garden send Nägeli a tree fern.]
5
King's College London received before 1840 Rottler's Herbarium from the Society for the Propogation of the Gospel (King's College Calendar, 1840, p. 40). In 1871 the College Council considered requests from both the British Museum and Kew Gardens to 'give over to them for public use Dr Rottler's East India Herbarium', and were told by Professor Bentley that the herbarium, 'though very valuable in itself, was of no use to the college for teaching purposes' (KA/C/M/11, Council minute 280, 8 December 1871), The council resolved to seek advice from Bentley, who recommended Kew 'inasmuch as the authorities of that place were at the present time preparing by order of the Secretary of State a Flora of the British possessions in India.' Bentley's advice was accepted (Council minute 294, 9 February 1872). Hooker thanked the College in a letter 0f 13 March 1872, incorporated in Minute 328, 19 April 1872, stating that its value was greater than he had anticipated, hoving found 'amongst the plants a great many which were insufficiently or inaccurately described by the successors of Linnaeus; & which but for the authentic tickets attached to these specimens, could never have been authoritatively referred to their systematic positions in future works'.
6
J. Hooker (1872–97), vol 1, part 1, published May 1872 (TL2).
7
India Office.

Please cite as “FVM-72-04-00,” 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 19 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/72-04-00