To William Mitten   24 May 1881

24/5/81

 

I am greatly beholden to you, dear Mr Mitten, that you will spare some of your valuable time for rectifying & supplementing the list of Australian Mosses, which the venerable Dr Hampe as the last of his works prepared for my fragmenta,1 & if you will do the same for Gottsche's enumeration2 I shall be still more indebted to you. As the list of Musci does not include the Tasmanian peculiar species at all, the additions would be rather considerable. I have not been able to do justice to the task from Jaeger's enumeration3 and such other literary material, as was at my disposal.

What a glorious achievement it would be, if you and Dr Carl Mueller would crown your labors by a Bryologia totius mundi4 through united final studies. The work to you and him should not be over labourious.

I have not yet learnt what will become of Hampe's enormous collection. Perhaps Kew will acquire these rare treasures also like Schimper's.5 It would be interesting to me to know which of the Australian plants at your place braved the strong last winters

If I can do for you anything here, pray, command my services.

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

The additions to the list in the fragmenta are to appear at the end of the year.6

1
Hampe (1881).
2
Gottsche (1881).
3
Jaeger & Sauerbeck (1870-9).
4
Bryology of the whole world.
5
The Hampe collection was acquired by RBG Kew in 1881 ( TL2 ).
6
B81.13.12, pp. 105-21, which includes (pp. 114-5) information supplied by Mitten but not received until after Hampe (1881), the main supplementary list of mosses, had been printed.

Please cite as “FVM-81-05-24,” 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 26 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/81-05-24