From Joseph Hooker1    10 March 1875

Kew March 10 /75.

My dear Mueller

The enclosed note2 was written to you 3 months ago & should have been sent off at the time with the list of Howe Island Plants3 — 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 Junci4 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.5

One of your giant Cycas has sprouted & so I do not despair of the other.6

Very sincerely Yr

Jos D Hooker

 

Cycas

Eucalyptus Polyanthemos

Gymnoschoenus adustus

1
MS black edged; Hooker's wife died in November 1874.
2
In the file, Hooker's letter to M of 30 November 1874 is enclosed in this letter.
3
List not found.
4
See M to J. Hooker, 25 December 1874 (in this edition as 74-12-25a).
5
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 .
6
See J. Hooker to M, 6 May 1873.

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 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/75-03-10a