From Frederick Bailey   5 December 1881

Queensland Museum.

Brisbane December 5th 1881

Dear Baron Mueller

I want a description of Musa textilis and cannot find one in any of the works either I or my friends have — Would it be too much to ask you if you have a diagnosis of the plant to let me have it — Some persons here think of planting it for the sake of the fibre — one has been distributed in the colony (a purple fruited banan1) under the name but from what I can make out this is wrong. If you could point out to me or send me a work wherein it was described I would purchas it.

I have the pleasure to thank you for your kindness in sending me the Jacksonia Stackhousii and the several other things lately I have two or three little thing to forward

No I is some fruit of a species of Hakea from the upper Thompson River2 I have no foliage but the person who gave it to me told me it formed a tree I cannot match it by any of the species in the Flora.3 Received from R. C. Burton Telegraph depart[men]t 4

No II Kindly compare this Eucalypt with E. piperita, Sm and tell me if you make it that species Collected by A. Williams 8 mile Plains about 10 m.5 from Brisbane 6

III I have received also from C. Hartmann these specimens of the fibrous barked Casuarina which you will remember receiving from me some year ago, and you proposed the name C. inophloia for it but do not think it the one spoken of by poor Leichhardt — who called it C. villosa?7 anyhow it is a distinct species and you might well describe it as C. inophloia if I thought you would not I would do so I feel so confident of its distinctness

IIII Polycarpaea sp.

By the by did you not receive the grass I sent out of Father Woods lot you have not noticed it to me

Rev B Scortechini has been sent on church matters in another direction so will not be able to visit Frasers Island for a time8

Yours very truly

and much obliged

F M Bailey

 

Excuse haste

I want to catch the mail today

FMB

 

Casuarina inophloia

Casuarina villosa

Eucalyptus piperita

Hakea

Jacksonia Stackhousii

Musa textilis

Polycarpaea

 
1
banana?
2
Qld.
3
Bentham (1863-78).
4
The final sentence is a marginal addition by Bailey.
5
miles.
6
Collected … Brisbane is a marginal addition by Bailey.
7
See Leichhardt (1847), p. 49.
8
Qld. See also B. Scortechini to M, 8 December 1881.

Please cite as “FVM-81-12-05,” 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 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/81-12-05