Melbourne
bot Garden
7/8/72.
By the Ship "Yorkshire" dear Dr Hooker, I send two stems of a Cycas (either C. media or C. angulata) to you, one for Kew and one for Flottbeck.2
Please select the two largest from the nine brought by the Ship. This is the first attempt to move stems of Cycas in an upgrown state many years old. Moreover I believe that this Cycas is the largest species in existence, it having (exceptionally) been seen 70 feet high. On my request Mr Fitzalan has secured for me these stems for experiment of transit, and I believe it is possible to send them long distances like the Encephalarti of Natal. Should the experiment succeed, I will try to send you a stem 30 or 40 feet long. But that will require two drays and two teams of oxen and will be a very expensive undertaking, the present one being already very costly. At all events you might get (as dead good)3 one of the tallest stems for Kew Museum. Mr Fitzalan, while in quest of these Cycas stems made a remarkable discovery, in as much as he found the Cycas gregariously. He says that it occurs in the Backranges by millions! This is the only instance of a Cycas (I believe) being found in enormous masses anywhere, altho' Zamia Preissii4 could also be gathered by thousands. The Captain of the Yorkshire has allotted a spacious cabin for these Cycas stems, and has promised to keep them from frost, also slightly moist during the voyage. My agents, Mess C Blackith & Co will take charge of the whole consignment, when it arrives, and these Gentlemen are instructed to let anyone, authorized by you, select the two largest (or best) The freight to London is paid.
The Orchideae for Mr Bentham will come by the Steamer Summersetshire5 and may thus arrive as early as the Cycas stems.
I long to see your and Mr Benthams new volume on genera.6 It will be a magnificent piece of work.
Always your
Ferd. von Mueller
Be sure that no bore-beetles are in the stem; perhaps they want a good smoking before plunging them into bottom heat, as otherwise the ova & larvae of Coleopters may develop themslefes, such as by the almost annual bushfires in the wilderness are destroyed.
The noble (only too laudatory) article in the gardeners Chronicle fell like a bomb into the camp of my enemies, and bursting there dispersed them in utter consternation, I hope, for ever.7
Really I have ever seen, that a providence is watching over us.
Cycas angulata
Cycas media
Encephalartos
Orchideae
Zamia Preissii
Gardeners' chronicle, 1872, p. 633 (Saturday May 11, 1872). For text of the article, see notes to M to J. Hooker, 12 August 1872. The piece was written by the editor, Maxwell Masters, after discussion with J. Hooker (J. Hooker to M, 20 November 1872).
For editorial comment on the reaction of the Argus to the re-publication of the piece from the Gardeners' chronicle in the Melbourne press on 30 July, see Melbourne Daily Telegraph,1 August 1872, and Herald, 1 August 1872 (extracts in notes to M to J. Hooker, 12 August 1872). The Argus on 31 July 1872 accused M of 'procurement', noting that despite the issue of the Gardeners' chronicle having arrived in the colony five weeks previously, it had only now been republished simultaneously in three Melbourne papers, when Parliament was 'engaged on the Estimates and will soon have to determine, in voting money for the botanic-garden, how it is to be managed in future'. The Argus commented that 'most readers would have concluded that [the Gardeners' chronicle article] was his own production'. It quotes parts of the article to suggest M's collusion in having it published: 'He asks, "What colonial botanist … ever fulfilled his duties more effectually than Ferdinand von Mueller, or has sacrificed health, fortune, personal convenience, to a greater extent in the discharge of his duties, many of them self imposed than he?" The touching words which we have taken the liberty to italicize, fall upon our ear like the refrain of an oft heard and lugubrious tune—an experience in which a great many of our readers will no doubt participate.'
Please cite as “FVM-72-08-07,” 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 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/72-08-07