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From Ferdinand von Mueller to Annie Walker   17 Sep 1881

17/9/81.

The climbers sent by you, dear Miss Walker, are:

Clematis glycinoides, DC

Kennedya monophylla, Vent

Kennedya rubicunda. Vent

Tecoma australis, RBr.

Smilax australis, RBr.

The trailing Pultenaea cannot be named with exactitude in the absense of fruit & flowers

Your paintings, concerning which you question me, are good outline and general representations, such as amateurs like to see in Albums of drawing rooms. If you speak of strictly botanical drawings, then in yours the analytic details are wanting. A model for botanic drawings in Sydney is Mr Fitzgeralds work on Orchids published in Sydney.1

As regards inspection of any drawing with a magnifying glass for seeing more than is seen by the unaided eye, is an impossibility in ordinary hand painting or indeed any painting, so far as art is advanced now a days Indeed even the celebrated Fitch2 has not achieved that in his 40 years career!

With best compliments

Ferd. von Mueller.

Clematis glycinoides

Kennedya monophylla

Kennedya rubicunda

Pultenaea

Smilax australis

Tecoma australis

1

R. Fitzgerald (1875-94).

2

Walter Hook Fitch, illustrator for Curtis's botanical magazine and other botanical works, including the lithography for B82.13.21.

Please cite as “FVM-81-09-17,” 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 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/81-09-17