To Edward Ramsay   30 August 1882

30/8/82.

 

This day, dear Mr Ramsay, I have received the beautiful red seaweed (unfortunately without fruit) and the other algs, also the Clathrus? in Alcohol. All shall be examined and for all this and former sendings you shall have credit publicly. Only let me mention, my dear friend, that the two little parcels (algs & the little bottle) cost each 2/6 freight and each 2/6 customs entry, therefore 10/; but this is not the worst; it involves as much loss of time to clear little things at the Customs as small1 things, so that my assistant had to spend some hours to get these things, we living away from Melbourne. Nothing is easier than to send small parcels by post! Things in Alcohol can be taken out of it after a few days & be sent in an empty phial by post or in a little tin box (matchbox, small jar &c).

The sprig from Mr Bennett has not arrived; but from his note, there can be no doubt, that the resin2 was obtained from Myoporum platycarpum RBr. Could Mr Bennett procure some more of this for experiments here,3 as so little of the technical value of the Myoporinae is known. I have alluded to the saccharine excrescences of this tree in former publication,4 but do not know for certain, whether it is merely a condensation of eliquescent5 sap.

Regardfully your.

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

Clathrus

Myoporinae

Myoporum platycarpum

1
large intended?
2
Probably the resin referred to in M to E. Ramsay, 16 August 1882.
3
See M to E. Ramsay, 22 September 1882.
4
'M. platycarpum of the deserts, adjoining the Murray-River, exudes from its stem a saccharine secretion, of which the native tribes used to be very fond ' (B77-08-01, p. 111).
5
Not in OED. Perhaps intended by M as the converse of ‘deliquescent’?

Please cite as “FVM-82-08-30,” 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 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/82-08-30