Kew March 10 /75.
My dear Mueller
The enclosed note1 was written to you 3 months ago & should have been sent off at the time with the list of Howe Island Plants2 — but matters with me soon got into utter confusion owing to the multiplicity of domestic matters I had to attend to, the accumulated arrears of work, & the fact of my Private Secretary having left me just previously.
My work has indeed so accumulated, & my wifes aid was so necessary that I have informed the Office of Works that I can no longer overtake my duties, & I am to be provided with an Official Secretary very soon
Thanks for your Xmas letter and note about Junci3 I have however now quite abandoned British Botany.
No Eucalyptus will stand at Kew except Polyanthemos! — I cannot make you understand that our chilled damp winter soil, & cold long springs, are totally opposed to Australian plants, even Alpines. It is not winters cold that does it, but damp & spring cold together
I shall indeed be glad of a clump of Gymnoschoenus adustus.4
One of your giant Cycas has sprouted & so I do not despair of the other.5
Very sincerely Yr
Jos D Hooker
Cycas
Eucalyptus Polyanthemos
Gymnoschoenus adustus
In the file, Hooker's letter to M of 30 November 1874 is enclosed in this letter.
List not found.
See M to J. Hooker, 25 December 1874 (in this edition as 74-12-25a).
See M to J. Hooker, 2 December 1874, for suggestions of what Eucalypts might grow outdoors at Kew, and the offer of a clump of Gymnoschoenus adustus.
See J. Hooker to M, 6 May 1873.
MS black-edged; Hooker's wife died in November 1874.
Please cite as “FVM-75-03-10a,” 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