Melbourne,
22nd September, 1873.
You are again entitled, dear Dr. Agnew, to the expressions of my deep gratitude for the extremely generous manner in which you brought my poor essay before the Royal Society of Tasmania, and also for the ready response to my suggestion of electing Professor Agardh into your ranks.1 I will inform by the next post my illustrious friend of the honour conferred on him.2
I trust to collect a few more additional notes on Tasmanian plants from time to time from materials in my Museum, even should I not get from settlers on your island occasional contributions of the plants around them.
Perhaps the gentleman who lately explored King's Island,3 has brought plants with him, or took at least notice whether any particular objects of vegetation, such as the Mistletoe, (Loranthus) did appear there, Would you kindly ask him? Perhaps he also would be in the position to say whether I could address any one there settled, with a prospect of really getting any extensive collection gradually from there. The vegetation of King's Island is worth examining. Thus, I find now that occurs there, while it seems absent in Tasmania.
Next year I hope to draw up a list of the plants actually occurring in your island,4 under the adoption of those names which, after the advance of observation since the issue of Dr. Hooker's work,5 is demanded.
Ferd. von. Mueller.
Loranthus
Stipa crinita
See M to J. Agnew, 9 August 1873.
See M to J. Agardh, 10 October 1873.
James Barnard. See 'Meeting, 9 September 1873', Papers and proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania for 1873, p. 50; also 'Royal Society of Tasmania', Mercury (Hobart), 16 September 1973, p. 2.
B74.13.05.
J. Hooker (1860).
Letter not found. For the text given here, see B74.13.04. The letter was read at the monthly meeting of the Royal Society of Tasmania held on 13 October 1873; the printed text is preceded by 'The Secretary prefaced the reading of the following letter by referring to the deep debt of gratitude we owed to the distinguished writer, Baron von Mueller, for his labours in the field of Tasmanian Botany. These labours, which we had fully recognised, have on many occasions called forth our warm appreciation and grateful acknowledgement, and it would be noticed from the concluding portion of the letter that the Baron, if circumstances permitted, was about to confer a still further obligation on the Society by compiling a complete list of all known Tasmanian plants, accurately named according to the most recent nomenclature' (Papers and proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania for 1873, pp. 53-4).
Please cite as “FVM-73-09-22,” 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