To Edward Ramsay   22 March 1880

22/3/80.

 

The remarkable fungus, sent by you, dear Mr Ramsay,1 belongs to the genus Clavaria, I think; but my means for mycologic studies are here so limited both in books & museum-specimens, that I do not like to give a positive opinion. I will send the specimen to a leading mycologist in England or Germany, Fries now being dead. Even if a fungus proves new for Australia, it may be known from other parts of the globe, the species having in many instances a wide and capricious distribution.

I wrote to Sir Sam. Wilson, who is so immensely rich & who has such a taste for horticulture, to ask whether he would give £100 towards your collectors expenses, but he declines on the ground of the difficulty of really interesting new inland-fields being reached. 2

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

Has your L.S.3 space for some notes on N. W. Austr. plants, which notes would occupy only some few Octavo-pages. They refer to the plants of the last portion of Mr Forrests expedition of last year. The specimens were lost sight off in the transmission & only now turned up, too late for Mr F's Report.4

I suppose the notes could soon appear & some extracopies of the print be struck off on my expense.5

 

Clavaria

1
See M to E. Ramsay, 15 March 1880 (in this edition as 80-03-15a).
2
Letters not found.
3
Linnean Society of NSW.
4
See M's appendix to Forrest's official report (B81.03.02).
5
M's supplementary account was not given to the Linnean Society of NSW, but was read to the Royal Society of NSW on 7 July 1880 and subsequently published in that Society's Journal (B81.13.04).

Please cite as “FVM-80-03-22,” 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 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/80-03-22