To George Bentham1    4 September 1876

4/9/76

 

I have forwarded to you, dear Mr Bentham, or rather to Dr Hooker, by the ship "Agamemnon" two large Cases with Cyperaceae 10 weeks weeks ago. Altho' it seems inadvisable to send consignment after consignment, before the former sendings are even known to have arrived, I have still made arrangement to despatch also early the large collection of Gramineae, and have for this purpose just sorted the last supplements. It will take you many months to do justice to the Cyperaceae, if you intend to institute critical comparisons with the universal material at Kew, Boeckeler having had no access to that material, and he moreover having admitted far too many species. 2

There are now still the ferns to send, but I do not like to be so very long without working material here, as it is needed like at Kew for daily departmental work. Hence I shall not send the ferns, until I know that you have come well on with the Gramineae.

I am still a discarded Director and a Gov Botanist out of the bot Garden! but a slight improvement by the voting of a small sum has been effected in my department, (if notwithstanding daily and very varied responsibilities it still can so be called); but the means will at best only reestablish the field-branch and perhaps lithographic branch; perhaps however office-rooms will be built for me; still I shall remain without living plants for new observations so needful in this clime, without real staff, without any laboratory and apparatus and without any approach to fair votes.3

The total of the four last years expenditure during my Directorship (including Laboratory work, Museum work, publications, extensive supplies of trees to churches, cemeteries, schools, public reserves, parks &c) was about £14000. Since I left, therefore in the last four finance years the expenditure (without the above-mentioned obligations has been £64,000! I could finally not even keep down the weeds with the means at my commands, but of course it became important to increase threefold or fourfold the votes since I left, though neither science nor industries nor the country districts have since derived any more benefit from the bot. Garden, which indeed has no longer claims to that designation.

I have nothing done to deserve this downfall; I spent all my time, my means, my thoughts on the Department. I displayed taste and ornamentation by island, Geyserfountain, Victoria Regia House, Palm House &c but I am a foreigner, and envey, jealousy and misrepresentations have followed me at every step since Sir Henry Barkly left particularly and finally I was sacrificed to nepotism.4

I hope the Cyperaceae will also safely arrive. Suppose a mishap occurred, what a hiatus then in our collections here after my nearly 30 years toil in Australia and the sacrifice of a private fortune, for which I have neither here nor elsewhere any real thanks.

Regardfully

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

Batis should be placed in Halorageae. I place the Plantagineae next to Loganiaceae. See the seeds!5

 

Batis

Cyperaceae

Gramineae

Halorageae

Loganiaceae

Plantagineae

Victoria Regia

1
MS black edged — M's brother-in-law, Eduard Wehl, died on 11 February 1876.
2
Boeckeler (1868-77).
3
The debate on the vote for the Government Botanist’s Department on 23 August 1866 resulted in an increase of £410 over the previous year ( Victoria Parliamentary debates , vol. 24, pp. 498-501).
4
See Maroske & Cohn (1996).
5
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 2, part 2, place Loganiaceae between Asclepiadeae and Gentianeae, and Plantagineae after Labiatae. See Maroske (2006) for a discussion of M’s systematic arrangements.

Please cite as “FVM-76-09-04,” 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 21 September 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/76-09-04