To William Mitten   13 February 1882

13/2/82.

 

You1 kind letter of the 28. Dec.,2 dear Mr Mitten, together with the large and important list of mosses reached me a few days ago by last mail. I am particularly beholden to you for constructing this extensive list, which obtains additional value through the new species recorded in it. As remarked in my letter of end of January,3 I had sent into print4 the list of mosses, which I had added to Hampe's5 from the Flora Tasmanica,6 from Jaeger and Sauerbeck7 and from msc. notes from you & C. Mueller; but I had kept the fungs and mosses in type, as Dr Cooke intended also to forward some more additions by the end of the year, and I was thus enabled to append to my compilation timely the additional species contained in your list.8 I thought this the better course in justice to yourself, as you use in many cases genera, different to those adopted by J. & S.,9 and as you follow also an other systematic arrangement. My list (strictly Australian) was nearly as large as yours, as Tasmania alone gave a great addition from Sir J. Hooker's work. When I requested our lamented friend Dr Hampe to enumerate merely the species of Continental Australia, I aimed not at a full enumeration of the whole cryptogams of Australia for the XI vol. of my fragmenta; but the extra duties for the international Exhibition10 here rendered it impossible to finish, as intended, the vol. in 1880; and this gave me time, to complete the different indices to date, only the venerable Dr Gottsche having sent no addenda, having as I am aware, but little to add from material within his reach. Hence I accept all the more gratefully your offer of additions also of Hepaticae.11

My total sum of Australian Cryptogams (ferns excluded) is now 3417, as printed off, a large share of these having come from me or from collections formed by correspondents on my request. No doubt, future research will add much in all branches of Acotyledoneae, but it will be a matter of time. That you work up novelties so quickly is a great encouragement, and as Dr C. Mueller seems so much engaged with the editorship of "die natur", I shall send in future all mosses to you, if you will name them kindly. That Dr Hampe should not have possessed the "Flora Tasmanica" seems astonishing to me, especially when I think, that I presented my own private copy of that costly work to Prof Lindberg of Helsingfors, after his lamentations in this respect; and I may add, that I did not earn the slightest gratitude from him!12 —

That you determined the Fissidens from the Victoria-River,13 is particularly pleasing, as I found in all the journeys in 1855 & 1856 from North West Australia to the ranges of the tropical East coast (3-4000 miles) til we reached the eastern slopes of the Ranges only 3 Mosses in North Australia; but it must be remembered, that we were mostly away from the narrow belt of coast jungles. In Central Australia over wide stretches, equal in extent to half Europe, no mosses of any kind occur, so far as known, though a few fungs and lichens. But in the crevices of the very limited number of mountains possibly some may yet be latent. Do any Mosses occur in the Sahara-region? and What does Central South-Africa offer in this respect. The Lake-Regions ought to be rich in them.

I have sent you by this post the Census of the plant-genera of Australia.14

Your list of Austral. & Polynesian Mosses will be submitted with a few introductory words from me to the R.S. of Victoria at the first session (after the Dec-febr. vacation) in March.15 I am beholden to you, for the generous spirit, in which you met me and cooperated with me, and if you will tell me, how I can show my gratitude, it shall be done so far as I can. Perhaps you have lots of duplicates of Cryptogams for disposal, and I could purchase them readily for my Museum.

So soon as the XI vol is bound, the alphabetic index being now in type, I will forward a copy. It may however be some weeks before the vol. is actually out.

Is there really no chance of the issue of a cryptogamic vol. with B. & H. genera?16

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller

 

Please correct any errors in the bryologic portion of the Census of genera, & let me know. Where are the Riccieae from Drummond described?17

 

Acotyledoneae

Fissidens

Hepaticae

Riccieae

 
1
Your?
2
Letter not found.
3
Letter not found; but see M to W. Mitten, 7 November 1881 (in this edition as 81-11-07a). Years earlier M had urged Mitten to prepare an index of Australian mosses; see M to W. Mitten, 2 September 1876.
4
B81.13.12, pp. 107-15.
5
B81.13.12, pp. 45-52.
6
J. Hooker (1855-60).
7
Jaeger & Sauerbeck (1870-9).
8
For Mitten's list see B81.13.12, pp. 114-15.
9
Jaeger & Sauerbeck.
10
International Exhibition, Melbourne, 1880-1.
11
M did not include a specific list of additional names for 'Musci Hepatici' in his Additamenta (see note 8 above).
12
See M to J. Hooker, 2 December 1868 and M to O. Lindberg, 2 February 1869 and 6 September 1869 (in this edition as 69-09-06c). For examples of anxiety about their arrival, see M to O. Lindberg, 19 April 1871 (in this edition as 71-04-19a) and 14 July 1873 (in this edition as 73-07-14c).
13
NT. Fissidens Victorialis, described by Mitten in B83.05.01.
14
B82.01.06.
15
In the event, the March meeting of the Society was the Annual Meeting and devoted to business matters. Mitten's account of Australian mosses was presented at the next meeting, on 20 April 1882 (Mitten [1883]). His material on Polynesian mosses was communicated by M to the Linnean Society of NSW and was published in the Society's Proceedings with an introduction by M; see Mitten (1883a).
16
i.e. in Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), a universal enumeration of phanerogamic genera.
17
Some of Drummond's specimens were acquired by M, and this may have prompted this inquiry. Mitten's answer has not been found, but Taylor (1846), pp. 414-7 describes ten species of Riccia collected by Drummond.

Please cite as “FVM-82-02-13a,” 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 19 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/82-02-13a