From Joseph Hooker1    11 January 1877

Jany 11 /77

Dear Baron

The little parcel sent by your lady friend has been received & sent on.

Mr Bull brought us the 2 plants of Correa Laurenciana2 (scarlet) yesterday,3 one looks well the other I fear is quite dead — I do hope that this pretty plant will thrive with us and add another to our rich shelf of Australian plants which we owe to you.

The last big tree Fern you sent us is growing magnificently; & the Todea gets bigger & bigger every year,4 it must now have 5-600 fronds on it. Witsteinia5 is growing under its shade and flowered last last6 year but the corolla fell off & was lost before I could get it down here for figuring.

I am as usual hard pressed for time — The Arctic Exped. has given me more work. They have no new plants but there seems to be a remarkably rich Flora between 79 & 82 in Smiths-Sound — richer than to the S. & W. of it. 7

If you care to look at my Presidential address,8 of which a copy has gone to you, you will see what a lot of work the R. S. has cut out for its President & Council. I shall be heartily glad when I can resign the chair.

Ever sincerely yr

Jos D Hooker

 

Correa Laurenciana

Witsteinia

 
1
MS is embossed with the crest of 'Royal Gardens Kew'.
2
C. lawrenciana?
3
See M to J. Hooker, 4 October 1876. The plants are entered in the Kew Inwards Book, 1873-77, p. 42, entry 16, dated 9 January 1877: 'Wm Bull | Correa Laurenciana'.
4
This sentence is marked with a line in the margin.
5
Wittsteinia?
6
sic.
7
The expedition of 1875-6, commanded by Capt. George Nares (HMS Alert) accompanied by HMS Discovery, penetrated further North than had previously been reached by ships, steaming from Baffin Bay via Smith Sound, between Greenland and Ellesmere Island, Canada. There was a naturalist on board each vessel (Smith, 1877, p. 801). For an analysis of the botany of the voyage, see Hooker (1878b).
8
Hooker (1876b).

Please cite as “FVM-77-01-11a,” 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 25 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/77-01-11a