To George Bentham   5 September 1873

Melbourne

5/9/73

 

I am always glad to get your letters, dear Mr Bentham, and trust that I shall enjoy your writing for many years yet. Your progress with the Flora is most pleasing, and I trust I shall get the rest of the proof1 by next mail.

I am doing as much as I can on the rest of the Monocotyledoneae, as you will see by the new volume of the Fragmenta, having just finished the difficult Restiaceae.2 The task for yourself will now be easy with them, especially as you have the R Brown specimens accessible, besides Drummonds complete. I have been scrupulously careful in the matching of the sexes. Indeed it was a troublesome task. I trust to get all Glumaceae ready for you by Christmas. Please tell me when you want the Liliaceae.

My altered departmental position and the helpless state in which I am left with only £300 for the whole Department except my salary, out of which House & Office rent, books & indeed everything now has to be found, and moreover the [un]safety of my position will probably force me to resign at the L. S. and the R.G.S., as I cannot any longer afford the annual outlay. That is my fate after sinking £8000 private means here in the Department. I shall sadly miss the Linnean publications.3

Will you kindly propose Mr Rob. Fitzgerald, the Deputy Surveyor General of N.S. Wales as a F.L.S. He is a worthy man.4

5I am now sunk into utter poverty; my last property was sold off6 to keep the Department going during the ruinous reductions from Oct til June, as I thought with the new financialyear I should have better votes in July. Better votes, indeed larger votes, were forthcoming, but not for me, but for the Cousin of the Minister of the Department.

I was forced to go into a small inexpensive Hotel, where I am working now.7

I thought a few words from Mr Darwin, who stood so well to Dr Hooker, spoken to his neighbour Mr Edw Wilson would have saved me from this unprecedented ruin, which two or three low-minded men of the Argus have mainly brought about. This ruin however may only be a temporary one, but it makes me ill and also grey before my time. Truth always prevails, but sometimes too late for the victim.

Always with grateful remembrance your

Ferd von Mueller

 

How strange that all three proprietors of the Argus8 should enjoy themselves in England, no matter who is ruined by their paper here.

I should say yet, that if you sometimes see a name, used in a collectors handwriting, you must not suppose that it is his name. They send specimens first & get the names from me, and then they may use the names, without mark of authority, implying that the names are theirs.

Ulmus (Microptelea) parvifolia has lately be9 found wild with Zizyphus jujbaba at Wide Bay.10

 

Glumaceae

Liliaceae

Microptelea parvifolia

Monocotyledoneae

Restiaceae

Ulmus parvifolia

Zizyphus jujuba

 
1
Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6.
2
B73.08.01, pp. 64-101.
3
M did not resign these fellowships.
4
The text ends near thebottom of a sheetwith no valediction. Robert Fitzgerald was nominated with Bentham and W. Thiselton-Dyer as additional supporters; see Certificate (in this edition as 73-11-06c).
5
The remaining text is filed at f. 210 of the volume. It is clearly out of sequence. Bentham is the most likely recipient at Kew to have received it as J. Hooker is mentioned in the text. It was written some time in 1873 since the ‘ruinous reductions from Oct til June’ to which M refers were imposed in September 1872, but after 31 May when M was dismissed from the Directorship of the Botanic Garden. The other apparently unsigned letter to Bentham from later that year, written on 26 September 1873, ends with about a third of a sheet remaining. The tone of this letter fragment is consistent with the text above, and it is therefore given here as the conclusion of the letter. The references to Ulmus and Zizyphus, in the postscript are consistent with a date of 1873; see note 10 below.
6
Gemmel (1975)records the sale of M’s various South Australian properties in the Bugle Ranges and Macclesfield, starting in 1852 with further sales in 1861 (to his brother-in-law C. G. Doughty), in 1862, and a final sale in 1868 to a Macclesfield storekeeper. M also owned land in Tanunda and Mount Gambier, and disposed of the latter in 1865, again to Doughty; see transfer of title, 11 October 1865 (in this edition as 65-10-11b). It is not known when he disposed of the Tanunda property. See also M to J. Hooker, 7 September 1872. The 'final property' apparently sold between October 1872 and June 1873 has not been identified.
7
Morton's Hotel, Milswyn Street, South Yarra.
8
Edward Wilson, Allan Spowers, Lauchlan MacKinnon.
9
been?
10
MEL holds undated specimens of U. parvifolia and Z. mauritiana (synonym of Z. jujuba ) collected in Queensland by Eaves who, in B73.08.01, pp 101-102, M credits with supplying the specimens of U. parvifolia .

Please cite as “FVM-73-09-05,” 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/73-09-05