31/10/811
You were so good, dear Mr Ramsay, to send me some months ago a fucaceous plant, dredged by you from a depth of 40-60 feet in Port Jackson.2 As there were no fruits on your specimens, I sent them to Dr Sonder, the great Algologist with whom I am in correspondence on Algs for more than 30 years! He also can make nothing of it, but thinks with me, that it may be a Sargassum. Will you kindly show these fragments also to the excellent Mr Hasswell,3 who — while dredging — does keep as a rule like you also any Algs for me. Could not for a trifling payment, which I would refund, parties living on different parts of the coast of N.SW. be induced to bring up fresh after a storm a cart-load full of various Algs (all sorts, some specimens of each), throw them on the floor of a barn or shed for drying, turn them over once a day, put them when quite dry in a corn bag and forward them with account of expenses. Such algae must not be washed in fresh water!
N.S.W. stands very poorly in the Census of Algs as yet.
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller
Got the additional fruits of your palm.
Sargassum
Please cite as “FVM-81-10-31,” 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