22/11/[81]1
I was pleased, dear Mr Mitten, to hear from you by last mail and to learn, that you have kindly undertaken to complete & rearrange the list of Australian Mosses, which the lamented Dr Hampe had written just before his death. Your splendid “Musci Austro-Americani”2 are on my writing-table, as I consult this splendid enumeration of yours just now for an index of genera of all Australian plants, under the press for the R. S. of Sydney.3 Altho’ I shall have your valuable revision of the Australian Mosses not in time for that index, I shall be able to use it in my Census of all Australian species of plants, now about 12000, of which fully 3000 are cryptogams.4
Without wishing to raise a point of delicacy, I would say in allusion to a remark in your last letter, that I am most willing occasionally to afford such substantial support to your researches, as you may have had from Sir Joseph Hooker & others. If you could make a tour to Central Africa, the uplands, what wonders would you do for bryology!
A few mosses go to you by this mail, which may interest you for locality. These particular mosses have not gone to Dr Carl Mueller, and I will arrange, that also in future sendings not the same mosses go to you & him.
Will you afford me the pleasure of sending me your photographic card for the collection of card-pictures of scientific Correspondents, and will you accept my poor photogram? In a speech at the pharm. Soc. of Melbourne,
[…]5
Please cite as “FVM-81-11-22b,” 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 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/81-11-22b