To Johan Lange   29 January 1873

Melbourne bot. Garden

29/1/73.

 

It is exceedingly pleasing to me, dear and honored friend, that the Dicksonia stems arrived in a state of vitality1 and contribute to the exotic scenery in your conservatories. I have to send you many other remarkable plants in course of time. Your new garden,2 under your able Direction, must be a magnificent institution.

I am under so manyfold obligation to you, that I feel quite a difficulty to make a reciprocal countersending for the learned "acta" of the botan. &. the archaeologic Societies.3 I hope however to show myself grateful. The Departmental arrangements and reductions here have been very unfavorable to the continuation of my Fragmenta, but I hope to resume the labours of this work soon.4 The 6th vol of Benthams work, with extensive contributions from myself, will soon appear.5

I am particularly grateful for your generous exertions on behalf of Consul Were.6 He is now aged and 20 years consul for Denmark, also Consul for Sweden, Portugal, Brazil and some other countries, but never received any Decoration, altho' this venerable and respected man attaches more value to it than most people. Perhaps it will come too late for him like for the Explorers Capt Sturt and Capt Speke, who died, before the intention to honor them was carried into effect. He has a few enemies, but I can assure you, dear Professor, that the Danish Government can have a no more worthy Consul to bestow a honor on.7

With deep regards and grateful remembrance

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

The early death of Prof Oersted I have much regretted.8 Your copies of the "Fragmenta" shall be completed.

 

Dicksonia

See also M to J. Lange, 1 December 1871 (in this edition as 71-12-01b), and M to J. Lange, 26 February 1873.
From 1871, the botanic garden of the University of Copenhagen moved to a new site, most of which it continues to occupy, and was opend to the public in October 1874 (URL http://botanik.snm.ku.dk/english/about/Havens_historie/fjerdehave/ , accessed 8 December 2016).
The library at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne has a run from this period of Botanisk tidsskrift, the journal of the Copenhagen Botanical Society.
See also M to E. Fenzl, 23 April 1873 (in this edition as 73-04-23a), and M to A. de Candolle, 20 May 1873 (in this edition as 73-05-20a).
Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, was issued on 23 Seprtember 1873 (TL2).
J. B. Were.
Were was appointed a knight, third class, in Denmark’s Dannebrog Order, in January 1873; see Australasian , 12 April 1873, p. 17.
Anders Sandö Oersted, professor of botany at Copenhagen, died in 1872.

Please cite as “FVM-73-01-29,” 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 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/73-01-29