To Joseph Hooker   26 October 1880

26/10/80

 

Two days ago, dear Sir Joseph, the accomplished Miss North arrived, and I had the pleasure of meeting her on the evening of her arrival here, when she showed me her superb oil-paintings, made in India and East-Australia You may well congratulate yourself, to have such an original and extensive contributor to the treasures of your Museum. She will start in a day or two for the big Euc.1 amygdalina trees at Fernshaw, where she will be able to paint also scenically some of the loveliest of our "Ferntree-gullies".2

She also ought to go also to New Zealand and Tasmania, and to West Australia on her way home.3

We are in turmoils for work of the Exhibition;4 so excuse brevity.

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller

 

Eucalyptus amygdalina

 
1
Eucalyptus.
2

On 20 April 1880, in a letter to R. Meade, assistant under-secretary at the Colonial Office, Hooker requested the assistance of the colonial authorities in supporting Marianne North who was visiting a number of colonies 'for the purpose of making, at her own cost, accurate paintings of the remarkable trees and plants of those countries for presentation to the Royal Gardens of Kew … But there is one, and perhaps the most important aid of all, that might not occur to the official mind, and that is instructing the Government Botanist to accompany Miss North for the purpose of indicating the best subjects for her brush, and, above all things, of giving her accurate information in respect of their names, uses, &c.' On 24 April 1880, his letter was sent as a circular despatch by the Colonial Office to

'Australian colonies

N. Zealand

Cape

Natal

Transvaal

Griqualand W [now part of the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, the capital of which is Kimberley]

Mauritius',

(National Archives, London, CO 854/21 ff 171, 172).

Her images from Fernshaw are at https://www.kew.org/mng/gallery/777.html, https://www.kew.org/mng/gallery/786.html, https://www.kew.org/mng/gallery/746.html and https://www.kew.org/mng/gallery/747.html (all accessed 29 September 2017). See North (1892), vol. 2, pp. 144-6.

3
Marianne North went to Western Australia after Victoria, and then saw M again when she called in at Melbourne before going to Tasmania and New Zealand. In North (1892), vol. 2, p. 168 she reports that M 'was excited over my paintings of the nuytsia and the Eucalyptus macrocarpa, which he had named, but never seen in flower. When I showed him the bud with its white extinguisher cap tied over it, which I was saving for Kew, he said "fair lady, you permit I take that?" and calmly pocketed it!' The item is presumably the specimen of E. macrocarpa,MEL 1612933, which is recorded as having been collected by North in 1880 and consists of a bud and cap only. E. macrocarpa was not described by M, but had been named and illustrated in W. Hooker (1836-54), vol. 5, tabs 405, 406 and 407. She described the circumstances of painting it in North (1892), vol. 2, p. 156, and in more detail in a letter to Joseph Hooker, 29 December 1880 (RBG Kew, MN 1/4, box 2, f. 116). Her painting is illustrated at https://www.kew.org/mng/gallery/751.html (accessed 29 September 2017).
4
International Exhibition, Melbourne, 1880-1.

Please cite as “FVM-80-10-26,” 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 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/80-10-26