Melbourne 2/12/74.
Last mail, dear Dr Hooker, brought me your kind letter of 22 Sept;1 it is delightful to perceive, with what sterling success the phytographic work is proceeding under your able direction at Kew. If we all persevere, the plants of the whole globe will be almost completely known by the end of this century.
Great preparations are made here for observing this day week the transit of the Venus. What advances in science have taken place since Cook observed it in Tahiti!2
I obtained lately flowers of Nertera reptans, having noticed this rare plant at Dr Curdie’s station.3 It is very near to your N. setulosa in flowers. Indeed the two may prove identical (yours having of course priority), but I have still to compare the Embryo.4
The second part of the educational Collections is under preparation; but in the still helpless state of the Department, the progress is very slow. My salary for the year has passed, and again only £300 working expenses for the whole Department (in this expensive country), and nothing for buildings. Several members of both sides of the House urged last week an increase of the vote;5 if the Ministry will comply with the request is still uncertain; at all events it will not be much. You can readily understand, that even if I throw nearly my whole salary into the Department as I have done last year, I can even then not continue the Laboratory or fieldwork nor provide for proper office buildings for books, instruments, travels interchanges &c. Doubtless you will have read my printed report,6 so that you will not be misled by any misstatements, made in Europe regarding my real position. To keep the Gov Botanist with his daily responsibilities out of the bot. Garden, out of his Laboratory, out of his Office building, Conservatories &c, is a most anomalous and humiliating proceeding. Unfortunately I have never prospered; the income attached to my Office was always much smaller than that of any other first Class professional officer of the service, and that salary was always so heavily taxed, that I could save nothing, though I never speculated and even remained alone in life.
Cultivation of the most common florist-flowers is now the main object of the botanic Garden, where with votes, much larger than I ever had, no new buildings arose or any other valuable additions have been made since I left, but part of the magnificent avenues of Grevillea robusta, 20 years old, have been cut down and other destructions have gone on extensively, while for new works hundreds of acres, reserved already since Mr Latrobe’s time at our city, have not even yet a walk through them or a tree planted on them!
Dr Curdie on my suggestion will send a large stool of Gymnoschoenus adustus, which grows near to his place, very soon to Kew by a woolship. In like manner it was entirely owing to my suggestion, that Dr von Haast sent you the Haastia; but I have hitherto failed with Mr Abbott, to send Pterygopappus and Scleroleima. If part of such could be sent in a Wards Case kept cool, these plants might easily be naturalized on the Scottish Highlands.
Euc urnigera. E. vernicosa, E. coccifera, E. coriacea and E. alpina ought to live also without protection at Kew
The experiment with our Cycas will surely lead to a great export of large stems not only from Australia but also from India.
With the aid of enlightened friends here and abroad, I have every prospect of regaining my Directorship, as I have done nothing to forfeit it, and no one could have done more with such means as I had.
With best regards
Ferd. von Mueller.
Cycas
Eucalyptus alpina
Eucalyptus coccifera
Eucalyptus coriacea
Eucalyptus urnigera
Eucalyptus vernicosa
Grevillea robusta
Gymnoschoenus adustus
Haastia
Pterygopappus
Scleroleima
Please cite as “FVM-74-12-02,” 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 24 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/74-12-02