From Ferdinand von Mueller to Ralph Tate   [Oct 1883]

Best thanks for the statistic calculations. Before you publish them let me give you addenda, as I have about 40 entries already since the Census was published. You deserve great credit for your bot. zeal, especially as you have to maintain geolog. relations also. I am glad that the Tatea turned out to be so interesting. R. Br. dedicated the Leschenaultia to his dear friend: "in honorem amici aestimati … Lechenault,"1 but unfortunately had already forgotten in 1810 his christian name (Latour) or in the profoundness of his friendship never asked for such trivial matter as a Christian name!2

Leschenaultia

Tatea

R. Brown (1810), p. 581: 'in honour of the valued friend … Lechenault'.

'Latour' is not a Christian name but is part of the surname of Jean Baptiste Louis Claude Théodore Leschenault de la Tour. The genus is Lechenaultia, as named by Brown.

Tate (1883a), read 2 October 1883 and published in December, contains statistics based on B83.03.04 and 'manuscript data supplied by Baron Mueller' (p. 110). It was the practice of the Royal Society of South Australia to produce proofs of papers very close to the date of the meeting at which they were read and to revise them before publication. The letter is dated to October 1883 as the earliest likely date it could have been written. As it has neither salutation nor valediction the sheet may have formed part of, or have been included with, another letter.

Please cite as “FVM-83-10-00a,” 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 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/83-10-00a