To Joseph Hooker   14 July 1873

Melbourne

14/7/73.

I have looked with extreme pleasure over the pages of the second vol. of your & Bentham’s genera, dear Dr Hooker, and trust that as an eternal monument of your & his greatness you will bring this masterwork early to a conclusion. All workers should send you notes of small details for supplement, and without wishing to be intrusive I offer a few. Coffea occurs in Australia, if C. Benghalensis remains in the genus, which I will ascertain. Geophila occurs also in Australia as G. reniformis.¹ Speaking of Webers primitiae flor Holsaticae² to Bentham³ I am reminded that in 1780 Weber clearly defined Majanthemum as M. Convallaria. Is that an older name than Smilacina?⁴

By the “Shannon”, free of freight, you will get an other Cycas, quite fresh. You will please select also one for Mr Booth of Flottbeck and as you have Departmental means, and I none I trust you will send it across to him, so as to save me the expense of freight and also Mr Blackiths agency expense. All this has been done hitherto out of my slender private purse, and the expense has been very great already again in this instance for obtaining these stems, as they had to be brought over ranges & through jungle swamps for about 30 miles inland to the coast of N Queensland. Then the freight from Port Denison to Sydney is great, again the freight [clearances]⁵ to this place, again the freight to London, though the latter has been reduced to half on my presenting 2 stems to Capt. Stakepool⁶ and his Lady. Select the largest stem for yourself. I require no return sending for this, and should like that all sendings of living plants to the bot. Garden stands over at present, altho I shall gratefully receive any Museum plants.

Let me trust that the sorrows about your brother in law have been transient.⁷

The Boronia megastigma will prove a splendid acquisition because it is so fragrant and continues a long time in flower. As it strikes readily from cuttings under a bellglass with bottom heat, you can now send it all over Europe to any conservatory. Of course in S. Europe it will grow in the open air.

Have you no influence with the Admiralty, so that one of the Fregattes of the Sydney Station could go for scientific exploration to N. Guinea. I should gladly go in such a ship and force my way to the alpine heights of Stanley range, if the necessary support was given me by the marines. In a few months wonders might be done there and I could largely collect for Kew along with what I collect for my own institution[.]⁸ I might get also other objects for British Museums. It seems strange that a place so near to the British settlement of Cape York and close to an English Mission station should be first become explored by other than British Expeditions

My friend Beccari works for Italy on the N coast, so the Russian Macoy;⁹ but the place, where I would like to go for a few months, is the S.E., where recently the new islands have been discovered by the Basilisk.¹⁰ I feel sure Sir Hercules Robinson and Commodore Stirling would do everything to promote my object, if the Lords of the Admiralty favored it. A telegram would start us off at once.¹¹

Your regardful

Ferd. von Mueller

What a chasm in phytography would be filled up by a good alpine & subalpine collection from N Guinea. What an honor it would be to British Statesmen & British Science, under whose standard I work as a naturalized British subject & Officer of her Majesty in this colony.

Boronia megastigma

Coffea Benghalensis

Cycas

Geophila reniformis

Majanthemum Convallaria

Smilacina