9/4/80
I thank you, dear Dr Hector, for your goodness of sending me Mr Buchanans comprehensive work on the N.Z. Grasses.2 It seems quite exhaustive and will be of importance for all times, particularly for local studies. The illustrations are neat and the analytic details instructive and clear. Whether all the forms, enumerated as species, can be admitted as such, will require still lengthened observations, but though many of these forms may not be specific, the records of them thus not lessen the value of work like this, where critical demarcations are far less the object of the work as to bring the different form fairly defined before the Colonists.
Unfortunately Agrostography has lost the only great worker in this branch of science in the latter half of this century through the sudden death of General Munro, who just had settled down in private life to work up all Gramineae of the world for D.C. I had just written & despatched a letter to the General3 when the sad tidings of his demise arrived.4
Let me hope that you are well & happy
With friendship
your
Ferd. von Mueller.
Gramineae
Please cite as “FVM-80-04-09,” 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 8 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/80-04-09