To Joseph Hooker   3 March 1880

3/3/80.

 

Herewith, dear Sir Joseph, I beg to send you some pinnae of a Polypodium (or perhaps Aspidium) from extra-tropical East-Australia, concerning which some misapprehension has prevailed since many years. Your great parent noted it in his own handwriting in my collection as a variety of Aspidium decompositum,1 possibly mislead by my own sorting of the specimens. In this view I followed Sir Will. Hooker (fragm. V, 137),2 stating however that the rhizomes needed comparison & keeping this Polypodium at least as a var. apart. Since, the Rev. Dr Wools and Mr Bailey, who lived among these ferns, have assured me, that the Polypodium - now forwarded - has never any indusium; it differs also in the narrower more sharply teethed lobes & in the rhizomes.

I am not sure, whether it is identical with Lastraea davalloides3 of Brakenridge,4 as I have no authentic specimen to compare, but Aspidium or Polypodium effusum, of which Grisebach distinctly says, that its indusium is often suppressed, comes evidently near to it, from what I see of South American specimens.

As this fern is sure to come under cultivation, if indeed it is not already so in your conservatories, you will be interested in it, and so you or Dr Baker may think it worthwhile to see what it really is. If new, I like to see it named in honor of Mr Bailey, as he and the Rev. Dr Woolls have the credit, to have independently shown its perfect specific distinction from A. decompositum.5 I have it from the following localities: Genoa, F.v.M., Mt Dromedary, Reader; Illawarra, Moore; Nepean, Woolls; Blue Mountains, Mrs Calvert; New England, C. Stuart; Cloud’s Creek, Dr Beckler; New England, C. Stuart;6 Clarence River, M Gillivray;7 Richmond River, Fawcett; Brisbane-River, Bailey; Condamine-River, Hartmann.

From an original specimen, obtained from Vienne, I find that Nephrodium colanthum8 of Norfolk Island is the real N. decompositum.

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller.9

Allow me to ask you, dear Sir Joseph, whether you met among Cruciferae any species, in which the color of the petals varies yellow and white? You must have seen an enormous lot of these plants, when working for the “genera”10 on this order. I believe, that I have two species, one a Capsella, the other an Erysimum, which have the petals yellow & white (or pink) also, but not on the same spot of growth. Thus I was unable to affirm, whether they are mere varieties. As a rule, the color in this respect is very constant, altho’ all colors vary white exceptionally, but here the white of the two is prevalent.11

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller.12

Could not Celmisia longifolia be naturalized in England? with Gentiana saxosa?13

 
 

Aspidium decompositum

Aspidium effusum

Capsella

Celmisia longifolia

Cruciferae

Erysimum

Gentiana saxosa

Lastraea davalloides

Nephrodium colanthum

Nephrodium decompositum

Polypodium effusum

A search at MEL has failed to find a specimen with such a note by William Hooker.
B66.02.01, p. 136-7.
Lastrea davallioides?
Brackenridge? Brackenridge (1854-5).
The only fern named by Baker with a specific epithet honouring Bailey that is listed in IPNI is Gymnogramma baileyiin Kew Bulletin(1892). See annotation transcribed in n. 9 below.
It is not clear whether M had two separate collections by Stuart from New England, or whether the repetition is an error.
M’Gillivray?
Nephrodium calanthum?
Annotation below signature: This looks to me, spite of its want of involucre, a mere variety of Nephrodium decompositum. Polypodium Rufescens, Blume, is, I think, an Anal[a]gous form of the less-divided variety of the same species. | J G B. [John Gilbert Baker].
Bentham and Hooker (1862–83).
See J. Hooker to M, 28 April 1880.
The first postscript paragraph is on a separate sheet of paper, f. 262 in the guard book, and has an annotation ‘16/4/80’ written in red ink diagonally across the text in an unknown hand. The date is presumably when the item was received at Kew. It has been associated with this letter on the basis of the annotation and because topics in this postscript and in the body of the letter are discussed in J. Hooker to M, 28 April 1880. The sheet is signed, but there are other cases of M signing undoubted postscripts.
The second postscript paragraph is on a separate sheet of paper, f. 263 in the guard book, and is placed here because the annotation ‘cf Raphanus’ in red ink relates to J. Hooker to M, 28 April 1880.

Please cite as “FVM-80-03-03,” 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 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/80-03-03