Meredith1
S. School2 No 1420
Octr 16th 1882
Baron F. Von Mueller —
Sir,
If, at your leisure you can send me the name of the accompanying flowers I shall be greatly obliged. As I get the names, I give object lessons on them in the school, as the bulk of the specimens are easily obtainable by the school-children. They take great pleasure in it.
I was unable to get the volume of your F. Australiensis3 in Geelong. At least only one Volume of the Descriptive portion & unfortunately that did not contain any of the plants the names of which you have so kindly furnished me with. I shall try Ballarat next time.
With the hope that I am not proving a nuisance to you
I have the honour to be
Sir
Your obedient servant
Sidney Johnson
Vic.
i.e. State School = a primary school established by the government.
Although Johnson names Bentham (1863-78), it is more likely that he had in mind M's Descriptive plants of Victoria, of which only the first part was published. AVH (accessed 15 November 2020) lists 5 MEL specimens dated to 1 October 1882 from Johnson, and none of the genera is in 'part 1', B79.06.04.
MS found with a specimen of Chamaescilla corymbosa (MEL 106922). MS annotation by M: 'Answ 16/10/82'. Letter not found.
Please cite as “FVM-82-10-16,” 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