To Joseph Hooker   18 June 1872

Melbourne bot garden

18/6/72

Private

 

The enclosed report may interest you dear Dr Hooker. Look — please — at the answers to a series of questions drawn up by me particularly those regarding forests.1 And in the face of this state of things the people of Edw Wilson and of the "Leader" here kept by writing me methodically down the Forest Inspector for three yours2 out of the forests! to invade the bot Garden, and to remove my valuable Californian, Queensland Arabian and other trees to plant Scarlet Geraniums, Verbenas & Petunias in their state!3 This is Victorian Statesmanship called forth by (Argus) Journalism in her Majestys Colony Victoria anno dei 1872! and that is the fate (for the time) of the Melbourne bot Garden! Half the species of the outdoor plants are dead, and I do not yet see the end of this horrible mischief and of the sacrifice of my work, though the change of the Ministry may bring better days now for me, my work & my Department.4

Mr Smith's work on useful plants5 has not yet reached me. Perhaps some of my notes in print, now partly sent,6 will clash with his.

Ought Prof Oliver not have at least alluded to Nelumbo nucifera?7 I cannot think that it is absolutely extinct in Egypt.

In Harvey's genera Iris should find a place with Moraea reduced to it.8

What is Passiflora Bonapartia? I do not find it in Dr Masters valuable enumeration in the L.S. transactions.9

You will soon get the large Cycas stem.10

Always with best wishes for you

Ferd von Mueller11

 

Cycas

Geranium

Iris

Moraea

Nelumbo nucifera

Passiflora Bonapartia

Petunia

Verbena

 
1
Probably B72.14.01. The answers to the fifteen questions circulated to over 800 people are summarized on pp. 11-28.
2
years?
3
stead?
4
The Government led by Charles Duffy was replaced by one headed by James Francis on 19 June 1872.
5
Smith (1871).
6
Probably early sections of B72.13.02.
7
Oliver (1868-77), vol. 1, does not include Nelumbo nucifera in the treatment of Nymphaceae, pp. 51-3.
8
See Harvey (1868), p. 372; see also M to J. Hooker, 1 December 1871 (in this edition as 71-12-01c).
9
Masters (1871). P. bonapartia is not in IPNI, but is mentioned in Keane (1849), pp. 79. 83, and is included in Hill (1875), p. 68, without an author or locality being listed.
10
See M to J. Hooker, 20 May 1872.
11
Annotated below the signature in an unknown hand: Thank for "Select Plants".

Please cite as “FVM-72-06-18a,” 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/72-06-18a