Melbourne, 11th October 1878
Mons. A. de Candolle
Honored and dear Sir
This is written to you from my sick bed by dictation, but I did not like the mail to pass without asking a favor from you. Could you oblige me with a few leaves, one flower and one fruit head of Myriogyne Cunninghami of the original specimen from which your celebrated father described this plant? I require this material for a critical revision of the genus Myriogyne.2
Enclosed you receive fresh seeds of Senecio platylepis, D.C. I found this plant in vast abundance from the Lachlan to the Murrumbidgee river.3 It seems singular that its wide distribution remained so long unknown. The mail just arrived announces that the first volume of your important monographiae4 has appeared; although this work was ordered many months ago, Dulau & Co missed to send me a copy, so that I shall probably have to wait for four months before I can use the volume. It interests me much on account of the Restiaceae. If Hypolaena and Calostrophus ought really to be united, then Labillardières genus should clearly take precedence, as I have pointed out in the papers of the Royal Society of Tasmania already last year.5 If you will kindly let me know which orders are to appear in the second volume of the Monographiae I might be able to send you additional material from my constantly increasing Australian collections, assuming that your London agents are still Trübner & Co for transmission.
With regardful remembrance
Yours
Ferd. von Mueller
Would it be possible to get also a fragment of Alectryon canescens D.C.?
Alectryon canescens
Calostrophus
Hypolaena
Myriogyne Cunninghami
Restiaceae
Senecio platylepis
Please cite as “FVM-78-10-11,” 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/78-10-11