9/11/82
Thanks for your letter, dear Prof. Tate, written last Friday.1 I had occasion to pass a trifle through the press for Wing's journal,2 and inserted the Dendrobium from Mr Foelsche also; but that does not hinder you to place the plant also before your R.S., as it is a species (or var) of your northern territory. After looking on living plants of D. canaliculatum in the conservatory of Mr Arthur King here, I allotted to this form from Arnhems Land3 with reluctance specific rank.
The Trymalium will have interested you — after sending the manuscript as T. spatulifolium,4 I came to think, that it might clash with Spyridium spatulatum, whenever and wherever this plant may be inserted into Cryptandra. You can therefore change the specific name as you deem best fit.5 I am very eager indeed to send more msc. for your new volume, but am much pressed with work, to finish the Census6 by December. After that my hands will be freer. Mr Morris has not interested himself for me in any way, though a close neighbour, and seems rather to incline to the Gentleman in the Garden.7
I may some day ask you for the loan of Mr Fitzgerald's type specimens,8 but could not attend to any critical work just now. — You have the true Thelymitra carnea also in S.A.
The proof will not be delayed here.
Wishing you and Mr Brown a pleasant voyage and grand success,9 I remain regardfully your
Ferd von Mueller
Cryptandra
Dendrobium canaliculatum
Spyridium spatulatum
Thelymitra carnea
Trymalium spatulifolium
i.e. 3 November 1882. Letter not found.
i.e. Southern science record. See B82.10.04.
NT.
See R. Tate to M, 31 October 1882, and M to R. Tate, 4 November 1882 (in this edition as 82-11-04a). This name appears on M's label on MEL 56162.
The species was published as T. wayae under the joint authority of M and Tate in B82.14.02, corrected to T. wayii in a Corrigendum in Transactions and proceedings and report of the Royal Society of South Australia, vol. 3 (1883), p. 109. See also M to R. Tate, 16 November 1882.
B83.03.04.
not interested … Garden is bracketed and marked Private by M.
'Mr Morris' is E. E. Morris, who had been headmaster at the Melbourne Church of England Grammar School which was situated close to M's herbarium and not far from his residence. In his letter of 3 November, Tate had presumably asked M what he knew of Morris, who had been elected Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Adelaide that day, to commence duty in January 1883 (South Australian advertiser, 6 November 1882, p. 6). Morris did not take up the Adelaide post, later in November accepting an invitation to fill the equivalent post at the University of Melbourne. The 'Gentleman in the Garden' is W. Guilfoyle.
Presumably the new South Australian orchid species described in R. Fitzgerald (1882), pp. 462, 495.
Tate and J. Ednie Brown travelled to the south-east of SA, arriving in Mt Gambier on 13 November 1882 (Border watch, 18 November 1882, p. 2).
Please cite as “FVM-82-11-09,” 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