28/7/77.1
Since a long time, dear Dr Hector, I have not written to you, but now a special cause arises, through your attention in sending me several new publications on scientific subjects, emanating from your colony.2 Pray accept my best thanks for your friendliness. I am not at all sure, that since you went to Europe, all my last publications have passed into your hands. Let me kindly know, how far you got the "fragmenta", the "Papuan plants" &c so that your series may be completed there. Are a few notes on N.Z. plants welcome for your Institute?3 Dr Hooker is so much absorbed otherwise, that I should not cross his path, if I wrote occasionally a note on your flora. I had a most touching letter from Sir Geo Grey4 in praise of the "select plants." The calls on me for the book by N.Z. colonists are frequent, but I cannot supply copies, as the rest of the edition is absorbed by a copy having been placed into the Library of each State school. As Sir George writes, that the little volume is so applicable to N.Z also, I repeat my former offer, to allow its reproduction in N.Z., and if you think it worthy of it, instead of Victorian you should say extra-tropic culture on the title page, and put your name as editor of the N.Z. edition under mine. I can send you my copy, interlaced with pages containing manuscript additions. Thus the reprint would be easy.5 Your Parliam might vote £200 for it that would be well spent. The book is to be translated, — so I just hear — into several languages in Europe.6 The New Zeal Edition might be dedicated to Sir G. Grey & the Marquis of Normanby.
Regardfully yr
Ferd. von Mueller
Letter registered at the Geological Survey Office, Wellington, on 14 August 1877.
Publications not found.
The New Zealand Institute (later the Royal Society of New Zealand).
Letter not found, but see M to G. Grey, 12 July 1877.
your edition an elarged [sic] one is interlined, but it is not clear where M meant it to be placed. No New Zealand edition was published.
German and Portuguese translations and a French adaptation were published in due course, but in the latter two cases not for a number of years; see B83.13.06, B05.13.01 and B87.14.06 respectively.
Please cite as “FVM-77-07-28a,” 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