Surveyor Generals
Office Sydney
19 Jan 80
Dear Baron
I send you a specimen of a plant said to have poisoned a number of sheep at Burke.1 If without the flowers you can make out what it is I should be obliged for the name and your opinion of it as a poisoner — I also send you a drawing2 of this plant I found at Hill End which I have no doubt from the places I found it in is a native. Cheranthera is not to be found in the Flora3 so I could not examine as to your conjecture. The anthers were as shown in every flower and could not have been united unless in the hub which I did not examine, thinking I could readily find it in some genus close to Isotoma Please return this drawing as it is one of the illustration[s] of my private copy of the flora, the genera of which, (where possible) I have been similarly representing
I remain Dear Baron
Yours truly
Robt D Fitzgerald
Hill End is about sixty miles north west of Bathurst4
Cheranthera
Isotoma
i.e. Bourke, NSW.
Drawing not found; M presumably returned it to Fitzgerald as requested.
'Cheranthera' is not in Bentham (1863-78), but there is an entry for Cheiranthera, vol. 1, pp. 127-8.
NSW.
MS found with a specimen of Phyllanthus sp. (MEL 1595507). MS annotation by M: 'Answ 20/1/80 FvM'. Letter not found.
Please cite as “FVM-80-01-19,” 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