Circular Head1
9th Novr 1879
Dear Baron
I duly received your note last night2
Strange, I intended writing to you this post forwarding by Rosedale3 care of the agents at Melbourne a small package of shrub leaves &c for your identification or classification
The specimen showing berries is from a tree about 80 feet high & 2 feet thick. The tree looks very like our common Blackwood but on close inspection differs greatly, I never saw but three specimens — The broad leaved specimen is from the stump of a tree similar in general aspect to the former but the leaves being different shows that it cannot be the same, the trunk had been cut down, but I believe there are one or two more in the neighbourhood of my farm — The third specimen with glossy leaves is from a shrub also in the same neighbourhood but I do not know it.
I will write to Mr Kaiser at Bischoff and endeavour to get specimens of the Richea P.4 or Dracophyllum,5 I have a small one growing in my garden
Your remarks in the Argus6 with reference to the Waratah of this place Telopea Truncata was copied by our papers,7 and I was glad of the information my own private duties in the farm prevents my attending to the vegetable kingdom, so that sometimes I feel very much inclined to throw up my work and take a turn in the bush
I have been quite inundated with applications for the seed of the Waratah8
I am
Yours truly
S B Emmett
Richea pandanifolia
Richea dracophyllum
Telopea Truncata
Tas.
Letter not found.
The steamer Rosedale traded regularly between Melbourne and the north coast of Tas.
Probably an abbreviation for the species Richea pandanifolia as AVH has no record of Emmett collecting the other possible species, R. procera.
Richea dracophyllum? or the related genus Dracophyllum? See Bentham (1863-78), vol. 4, pp. 257-65, especially p. 261.
M to the Editor of the Argus, 10 October 1879, p. 7 (in this edition as 79-10-10c) (B79.10.06).
B79.10.07.
In his letter to the Editor of the Argus, 8 October 1879, p. 10, Emmett had enclosed 'a few seeds, which you can give to your friends'.
MS found with a specimen of Notelaea ligustrina (MEL 2274220). MS annotation by M: 'Answ 17/11/79'. Letter not found.
Please cite as “FVM-79-11-09b,” 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