To Joseph Hooker   30 January 1873

Melbourne bot. Garden,

30/1/73.

 

I managed under much adversities, dear Dr Hooker, to get already to day away by the Hampshire, an additional case full of dried plants for Mr Bentham's use. I had to pack it hurriedly, as the ship actually sails this afternoon, and so I have not been able to include the Haemodoraceae and a second parcel of Scitamineae. Otherwise Mr Bentham has by this sending all Monochlamydeae with adnate calyx tube complete.

Capt. Ridgers, the Commander of the Hampshire, is an old friend of mine, and I have therefore entrusted him also with a glass case of living plants for you, he being willing to bestow particular care on the transit. The case contains among other rarieties the blue flowered Andersonia coerulea, which is one of the only three existing Epacrideae with purely blue corolla all 3 being as pointed out by me S.W.A.1 plants. You have no idea of their peculiar look, until you see them in a living state and the strong plant now sent would give a splendid plate for the Bot. Magazine.2 To fill the case at the last moment I as a private gift sent 3 baskets of Lepidosperma & Xerotes,3 also a parcel of crude Algae for Professor Dickie.

Regardfully always

your Ferd. von Mueller

 

The generous allusion to me in the just arrived number of "Nature" has been a valiant support to me just now during the crisis.4

The Haemodoraceae & rest of Scitamineae shall come by one of the next clippers in a few weeks, together with all Liliaceae & allied plants, so that only then Glumaceae will remain, unless indeed new assailments on my position take place. A person, who was sent out 2 years ago by Edward Wilson as an Agricultural Reporter endeavours to [absorb] as Secretary of the new Agricultural Department also my Authority [here as Director]5

I have not paid the freight for the two cases

 

Andersonia coerulea

Epacrideae

Glumaceae

Haemodoraceae

Lepidosperma

Liliaceae

Monochlamydeae

Scitamineae

Xerotes

South West Australia.
The plant was not illustrated in the Botanical magazine.
The entry at Kew records: 1 basket made from Lepidosperma filiforme,1 from Xerotes longifolia, and a mat made from L. squamatum(Museum entry book, Kew, 1861-79, p. 345).
See Nature , 3 October 1872, p. 460: 'History is said to repeat itself. It is singular to find that six months ago the colony of Victoria was involved in a similar controversy to that which has recently agitated the scientific world at home. Baron Friedrich ( sic ) von Mueller is the Dr. Hooker of Australia. The Botanic Gardens at Melbourne have become under his management as truly scientific an institution as those at Kew, and their Director has performed similar eminent services both to the colony and to and the mother country in spreading a knowledge of the value of the indigenous vegetable products of Australia. … Next to the removal of Dr. Hooker from Kew, botanical science all over the world could receive no severer blow than the deposition of von Mueller from the position he occupies at Melbourne'.
Alexander Wallis. See notes with M to J. Casey, 3 December 1872 and A. Wallis to M, 18 January 1873.

Please cite as “FVM-73-01-30,” 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 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/73-01-30