From William Odgers¹    14 April 1881

Marginal note: 'Copy of Circular Despatch from Colonial Office of 26th January & enclosed Paper on the Botanical Enterprise of the Empire by Professor Thiselton Dyer. 2 Copies'.

On 26 January 1881 Earl Kimberley sent a circular to the Victorian Government saying that he was sending 'copies of a paper on the Botanical Enterprise of the Empire which was read before the Royal Colonial Institute on the 11th of May last by Professor Thiselton Dyer, the Assistant Director of the Royal Gardens at Kew'. The paper gives Flora australiensis 'prepared at Kew by Mr. Bentham, with the co-operation of Baron Ferdinand von Mueller in Australia' as one of the 'most important enterprises of the Empire' (pp. 9-10). Dyer also writes (pp. 27-8) of M:

'As long as Sir Ferdinand von Mueller is alive Australia will possess one of the most learned botanists of modern times who is devoted to the study of her flora and a master of its details. As a scientific man it is impossible not to envy the freedom which he now possesses from all administrative labour. It is to be hoped that some joint arrangement may be arrived at amongst the several Colonies to secure his unique herbarium of Australian plants as a permanent public establishment, to be provided with a proper endowment, and to be preserved for all time as a standard of reference in the southern hemisphere for the accurate nomenclature of indigenous plants. It is to the credit of Victoria to possess him upon her civil establishment; but his scientific services, as an explorer no less than as a scientific botanist, have been rendered to the whole continent, and I observe that the latest of his many publications on the vegetable resources of Australia is a most useful report on the forests of West Australia.'

The lecture was published as Thiselton-Dyer (1880); the page numbers given here are those in the copy sent to M.