To Miles Berkeley   23 February 1881

23/2/81.

 

In the Journal of Botany for January 1881 I just notice, reverend and venerable friend, that your important elaboration of my fungs was placed before the Linnéan Society on the 18th Nov.1 I am deeply grateful to you for all this new exertion of yours on my behalf. I have been musing, what I could send you, to give you some little pleasure and that might interest your poor Lady and your florishing family. All I could think of, is a book illustrative of some scenic aspects of the Colony Victoria.2 Kindly accept it as a souvenir which may thus far have some slight claims on your attention, as you described fungs from many of the places illustrated in the work; and as indeed also all over Victoria the Fungal Flora will speak throughout the whole present creation of you everywhere.

With every sentiment of gratitude and attachment to you, and with every wish for your happiness

Ferd. von Mueller.

1
See Proceedings of the Linnean Society, session 1880–1, p. 2; Berkeley (1881).
2
Almost certainly Walch (1880), although the copy sent to Berkeley has not been found. Victoria in 1880 contains tinted lithographs and wood-engraved plates, and was advertised as ‘The gift book par excellence’ and described as ‘a handsomely bound, large sized, gilt-edged volume descriptive of the progress and natural beauties of the colony’ (Argus, 31 July 1880, p. 10). It sold at 3 guineas for subscribers and 4 guineas for others, a price equivalent to about 20% of M’s income for one week. For a review, see Argus, 26 February 1881, p. 9.

Please cite as “FVM-81-02-23,” 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 25 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/81-02-23