To Joseph Hooker ¹    16 August 1879

16/8/79.

Let me express to you my best thanks, dear Sir Joseph, for your generous felicitation to the unexpected high distinction, which the grace of her Majesty conferred on me.² A congratulation from you is particularly gratifying. That Mr Bentham did not at once attain to the same degree, made me quite sad at the time, after his 60 years working on plants systematically. When I think of it, what a lenght of time!, almost as much already as your fathers of unperishable memory. When I studied in Kiel in 1846, I went during the autumn vacation to Sylt & Föhr on the West coast of Schleswig to examine more closely its vegetation, gathering Juncus pygmaeus (which you have now also in your Students Flora)³ and many other rare plants. When I came back, the first word, Professor Nolte said, you have missed Bentham visit!⁴ So it was, he then came to Kiel also on his continental tour to gather every then possible information on the Labiatae for the 12th vol. of D.C.⁵ — and now, he is still as fresh and labourious mentally as then, when I was a youngster. —

It is really very good of you, that you have spent some of your precious time to see my W.A. Forest-report⁶ through the press, which thus obtains additional value, which ought to be acknowledged publicly; this will be done in the decades of the Eucalyptography, of which the 4th is nearly ready, though through delays of the lithographer not even the first decade is actually out.

At last a forest bill is to be introduced here,⁷ but our best forests are by this time quite demolished. I preached here to deaf ears on this like on so many other subjects.⁸ So, some years ago, I induced Mr Krichauff, a member of the Adelaide legislature, and an University friend of mine, to bring in there a Forest-bill, which he did and out of which arose at once then in Adelaide a proper Forest-Department,⁹ for which latterly Mr J. E. Brown has done such excellent work.

I will take advantage of every opportunity to examine Salicorniae in a fresh state, but the garden here is no longer devoted to science-culture nor accessible to me, and the Saltbush-desert commences only 150 miles from here. In the same way I am daily hampered for forest-investigations, for which I want the rich collection of living trees, established by me in the bot Garden, including numerous species of Eucalypts, many of which however since destroyed by ignorance and in senseless changes. I shall not be able to do anything even for the Sydney or Melbourne great Exhibitions;¹⁰ as not even my laboratory has been restored to me, & I am provided with no means of any other kinds to share in the Exhibitions.

With every feelings of grateful regards

your

Ferd. von Mueller

Have you noticed, that in the genus Poranthera, species occur with opposite leaves (e.g. P. microphylla); perhaps you like to take notice of it in the "genera".¹¹ What a splendid work; I hope your & Mr Bentham's united labors will bring it in a few years to conclusion. I can furnish you with some addenda, if you like, for any supplemental notes in the last volume.

Eucalyptus

Juncus pygmaeus

Labiatae

Poranthera microphylla

Salicornia