Queensland Museum.
Brisbane Oct 25 1883
Dear Baron Mueller
I send packet containing Macrozamia & Gum Seeds Note on the Macrozamias inclosed. The seeds are some I had collected but they are as you will see not very good I have spoken to a person to try to get some Moreton Bay ash E tessellaris for you and shall be always glad to send any Eucalypts or other tree seeds to you as I receive them. I have not a seedling to send or would do so. I don’t like Moores paper1 so feel glad you had nothing to do with it This is a difficult Genus (the Macrozam.) and only one like yourself should touch it is my idea.
The Macrozamia I last sent I received from the Springsure District2 but some distance from those plants you have named M. Moorei — but I look upon it as only a stunted plant of it all belong to the same I enclosed young plants, leaf […] and scales & nuts with the core stalk
In haste your
F M Bailey
3 I like you to have all material of Macrozam so send it as under.
I have just received this specimen from Mount Perry, by the inflorescence I would think it M. Paulo-Guliemi4 but the leaf is certainly that of the species called M. Douglasii which by the bye is nothing in my opinion but a form of M. Fraseri Miq. The sender of the specimen to me from Mount Perry says "No 162 male & female cones, nuts, young shoot & portion of leaf enclosed stem all all5 under ground leaves 3 to 4 ft. often 5 ft. long male cones 6 to 9 ins. female cones 6 to 14 in. (usually about 8 to 10 in.) long nuts bright orange when ripe cannot indentify it with any of the five Macrozam in your Synopsis of Queensland Plants 6 I should perhaps mention that the underground stem is from 12 to 15 in. long and where thickest about 10 in. in diameter root spindle-shaped — the whole underground portion is something of this outline7
This outline is just like that of our common one which I take for M. Paulo-Gulielmi.
FMB
8 I have had this by me for over a year in the hopes of the person who gave to me bring a male cone & leaf or two from the same place it makes a large plant with a hundred or more leaves — I have just gone to the Gardens and asked Pink as he was sending a box to Melbourne to pack up a leaf or so and a female cone off the plant of this species in the Gardens and inclose in the box asking the person to send them to you. I have always called it M. Miqueli but it will help you work to have it
FMB
Eucalyptus tessellaris
Macrozamia Douglasii
Macrozamia Fraseri
Macrozamia Miqueli
Macrozamia Moorei
Macrozamia Paulo-Guilielmi
Macrozamia Paulo-Guliemi
Please cite as “FVM-83-10-25b,” 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/83-10-25b