Ballina.1 29/4/79.
My dear Baron,
I have just received your letter respecting Eucalipti.2 I shall be happy to do my best, but do not see my way as to the seedlings — I am terribly at sea as to these same trees, as there are apparently so many names for them, — and, as to local names, they vary in a most absurd manner — Sometimes at the distance of a few miles they are altered — I do not know whether you received my letter referring to "the Forest Mahogony"3 as called here, but I have, I hope, explained its description pretty well. I cannot arrive at its proper name — We have a tree here (a sea coast tree) growing in swampy ground, generally in tea tree swamps, which is called "Swamp Mahogony".4 It has a deeply furrowed persistent bark, at a distance resembling rough Ironbark but with a rusty hue. I have imagined it to be E. robusta, and would be glad to know if I am right. We have Blue gum E. saligna, Flooded Gum which grows very tall and straight on banks of rivers and on edges of brushes high up creeks — sometimes of a great hight & size — supposed to be rostrata. Iron bark, at least 2 kinds — Spotted gum, maculata, of immense size on the Clarence — moderate here. Messmate — Tereticornis (a splendid timber, coast). I do not remember the tree from which the specimen came, you called resinifera, but think I can find it — Forest Mahogony — Swamp Mahogony — the last two referred to above — Box, a grey looking tree with peculiar dark grey bark and about the butt sometimes large, but generally not so — & not common, local — bark is used, where Messmate, usually called Stringybark, is not to be got — Blackbutt5 at Tweed, much used for ship building, — planking chiefly — I confess myself terribly at sea about the correct names for most of those — I enclose a spray of a tree a black cut in mistake! today, and I don't know — At present I am terribly busy — and rather in a fix, as instructions have not yet come as to size, &c, of specimens — so that I can do nothing but get the felling done. Are there not two Sloaneas a large tree — Sloanea australis — & Maiden's blush, a small, pinkish when cut? Synuon6 glandulosum seems to grow larger on mountains than in the low ground — I am rather confused about the tree with the oblong fruit stone (Red Tamarind) and some now think that the flower sent to me, which I sent on to you, was that of the Yellow Tamarind, Diploglottis Cunninghamii If you can help me in my perplexity I shall feel gratiful. I should have sent you what looked like a holly but I lost the branchlet — a black said it grew large — a second specimen I enclose somewhat resembles Pseudomorus Brunoniana — It sometimes grows into an impenetrable bush but I never saw fruit or flowers on it.
I am, My dear Baron,
yours truly,
Charles. H. Fawcett.
Baron F. von Mueller
&c &c &c.
Melbourne.
P.S. They say they have E. amygdalina (stringy bark) on the Clarence, also E. crebra.
Diploglottis Cunninghamii
Eucalyptus amygdalina
Eucalyptus crebra
Eucalyptus maculata
Eucalyptus resinifera
Eucalyptus robusta
Eucalyptus rostrata
Eucalyptus saligna
Eucalyptus Tereticornis
Pseudomorus Brunoniana
Sloanea australis
Synuon glandulosum
NSW.
Letter not found.
MS annotation by M: 'E. microcorys'. Letter not found.
Marginal note by Fawcett, with its intended position indicated with an asterisk: 'timber red — good in wet places —'. MS annotation by M: 'E. botryoides or E. robusta'.
Marginal note by Fawcett, with its intended position indicated with an asterisk: 'Qy [Query?] pilularis —'.
Synoum? See also C. Fawcett to M, 14 November 1879.
MS found with a specimen of Citronella sp. (MEL 2240573), collected by Fawcett in 1879 at Richmond River, NSW, as Villaresia sp. MS annotation by M: 'Answ 11/5/79'. Letter not found.
Please cite as “FVM-79-04-29,” 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