From Joseph Hooker1    25 September 1881

Septr 25 /81

My dear Baron

The case which you have so kindly directed to be sent with Andersonias, has arrived,2 but with the plants stone dead, as was indeed to be expected. It is quite impossible to send such plants alive in a Ward's case — they are most impatient of moisture, & indeed it is by moisture that they are killed in our Greenhouses. In old days, when the water was not "laid on" to the houses & the young and old Gardeners had to walk a good way to fetch every pot of water, these "hard-wooded" things were well grown — & then the soft-wooded ones were starved — now it is all the other way, the soft wooded flourish, & the hard wooded are watered to death.

These plants, Epacrideae, — can only be introduced by seed, & that is why I have so often asked for their seeds. Mangles & Drummond introduced most of them — all by seeds in letters. As did Cunningham & his predecessors.

No plants could be better than these when put into the case by Mr Webb & the case itself is in perfect order — the soil is quite moist — & the plants are perfectly well packed, but they are dependent for life on a free circulation of dryish air, — the steamy interior of a Ward's case, or of a damp pit, is fatal to Epacrideae.

The Helicia seed sent by post arrived quite dead, I am glad of it, for the Museum however.

Thanks for the note about the Nipa.3

I have written to Mr Webb asking for seeds of them & other Epacrideae & informing him of the total loss of every specimen. — they have evidently been dead for weeks & I cannot doubt but that the first heat killed them by raising vapor in the case.

We are accumulating a huge collection of Brown's plants for you — do not suppose that you are forgotten here, but you have no idea of the work we have to get through in the day.4

Ever sincerely yr

Jos. D. Hooker

Andersonia

Epacrideae

Helicia

MS annotation by M: 'Answ 22/11/81.' See M to J. Hooker, 22 November 1881.
See M to J. Hooker, 12 July 1881.
See M to J. Hooker, 4 August 1881.
See also M to J. Hooker, 22 November 1881 (in this edition as 81-11-22a).

Please cite as “FVM-81-09-25,” 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 28 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/81-09-25