From Henry Hance to Ferdinand von Mueller   9 Aug 1874

Whampoa,¹ 9. August, 1874

My dear Baron,

Since I last wrote to you by mail of 20. June,² I have received your letter of 18. May,³ with a very interesting collection of plants from Lord Howe's Island. How much novelty it contains. I was especially glad to get the beautiful Dracophyllum, & laid it with the very few Australian species I possess, amongst others its ally D. Milligani, & the New Caledonian ones described by Brongniart & Gris.⁴ Where have you described these insular novelties?⁵ Is the island inhabited or not? It is difficult to find in geographical works any information about these little specks which dot the Pacific. In your interesting tractate on the New Hebridean Flora,⁶ you say that Aspl.⁷ vulcanicum, Bl. is a native. The fern sent me under that name, and so labelled in yr handwriting, is assuredly A. pallidum, Bl. I think I may say this without the slightest risk of being mistaken, because I have compared yr fern with Cuming's no. 188 from Luzon,⁸ & a Java specn. sent some few years since by Teijsmann, under the name of A. crenato-serratum, Bl. (which Mettenius has shown to be identical) — & because I possess A. vulcanicum from Mettenius himself, under the name of A. heterodon, which he subsequently admitted was an error. And I have also the same sp. from Ceylon. Ten years since, I observed in my 'Adversaria', (exempl. sers. impr. p. 55.)⁹ that Thwaites' n. 1010 is identical with Blume's sp., & I have seen no reason since to change my opinion. What is more curious is, that another New Hebridean Fern you sent me a very bad specn. of, collected by Capt. Fraser,¹⁰ appears quite undistinguishable from Athyrium thelypteroides, Desv. This wd be less remarkable if, as stated in the 'Synopsis Filicum',¹¹ this sp. occurs in Penang; but I am persuaded that this is an error, for which I fear I am indirectly responsible. When the late Dr Lorrain, who had lived for years in Penang, & hunted assiduously for Ferns, died in HongKong, his collections came to me, & this one probably labelled Penang by me, was sent with specimens of nearly all to Kew. But Dr Lorrain had resided & practised in Ohio, & I can scarcely doubt that this fern came from thence. Very many in his collection had no label either of name or locality, (in fact scarcely any had names, for he did not know them) & I had myself labelled Davallia Novae-Zelandiae as from Penang, not knowing any better then, or being aware that there were extraneous species in the collection. Two days ago I received quite unexpectedly & without previous advice a most beautiful assortment of Australian Orchidaceae, Haemodoraceae, Restiaceae, & some very interesting Grasses, with a number of miscellenea. How very lovely your small terrestrial Orchids are! How I should like to see them growing, & get a better idea of their aspect when fresh. Some are beautifully figured in the Fl. Tasmaniae.¹² I have quite recently got a good set of Riedel's Brazilian Grasses, determined by Trinius, & these with a considerable number of Spruce's which I have long had, more than two thirds of the European spp., fine sets of So. African, from the late Prof Lehmann, Dr Pappe & MacOwan, Hooker & Thomson's Indian, Thwaites' Ceylon, & many Australian from you, make my Agrostothecae rather rich. There are a few Australian genera, Ectrosia, Sclerachne, Xerochloa, which I have never seen. I am rather sorry to see you so ultra-synthetic in regard to grass-genera. I am no "splitter" myself; but, in an order so simply constructed as Agrostidaceae, you must, I think, rely on characters which in plants of higher evolution you could afford to pass over. I have to thank you very much for the two Calogynes, sent in an envelope, wh. came in perfect order. I am trying to get the Chinese sp., but have not yet made my correspondent understand it. You ask if we have any tree ferns here — No — Alsophila podophylla is scarcely one, but the Formosan A. lepifera J. Sm. is decidedly. It is very close to A. crinita, Hook. & is cultivated in HongKong now. I have no knowledge at all of Oncus. Some of Loureiro’s plants would puzzle Oedipus & the Sphinx together. Aloëxylon seems quite unknown. Perhaps the French may find this & other incognitae in Cambodia. Or, if, or when, we can explore the interior of Hainan, we may get a clue. I am a very bad hand at suggesting trees for cultn. I am ashamed to say that everything I take under my care languishes, & usually dies — & I never meddle with gardening for this reason, besides want of time. I think perhaps Carpinus Turczaninevii,¹³ Quercus aliena & mongolica, Pistacia chinensis and Ostryopsis would be worth introducing — but I dont know how you can obtain them. Hemiptelia¹⁴ Davidii would be a splendid hedge plant. Dr Bretschneider recently sent me a (sterile) branchlet with spines 4 inches long! Paliurus Aubletia too would be useful for the same purpose, besides being ornamental from its glossy foliage & curious vivaricate growth.

What with a mass of correspondence, the ceaseless labor of attending to my herbm., even to the smallest mechanical details, now my children have gone from me, and the writing of little botanical papers, determining plants for others, &c., I seem not to have a minute to myself. Collections get injured or devoured before I can poison & fasten them down.

Will you kindly forward the inclosed¹⁵ for me. It is for a young man in the gardens¹⁶ who wanted some Chinese beetles. I thought I could further his views, through the son of an old friend of yours, Dr. Krauss of Stuttgart, but have failed, I am sorry to say.

Let me again thank you for the beautiful Orchideae especially — & also again express my extreme anxiety to possess vols. 7 & 8 of yr Fragmenta. If difficult to procure, I would, I can only say, cheerfully pay three times the publishing price.

I am,

My dear Baron,

Very sincerely yours

H. F. Hance

You sent me an unnamed Panicum (Urocholoa)¹⁷ years ago. Do you know its name?

Agrostidaceae

Aloëxylon

Alsophila crinita

Alsophila lepifera

Alsophila podophylla

Asplenium crenato-serratum

Asplenium vulcanicum

Asplenium pallidum

Asplenium heterodon

Athyrium thelypteroides

Calogyne

Carpinus Turczaninevii

Davallia Novae-Zelandiae

Dracophyllum Milligani

Ectrosia

Haemodoraceae

Hemiptelia Davidii

Oncus

Orchidaceae

Orchideae

Ostryopsis

Paliurus Aubletia

Panicum

Pistacia chinensis

Quercus aliena

Quercus mongolica

Restiaceae

Sclerachne

Urocholoa

Xerochloa