From David Spence   1884

[…]1

The more bulky specimens of the Lake plants I have packed in a little (50) cigar box along with the fossil fruits and papers of algae. The smaller specimens I will enclose with present letter — and of these

No1 with spike leaves in whorls I imagine to be of the Hydrocharidae family — A better-class boy told me that it was in flower for a short time at a particular season of the year he thought about Christmas.

No 2 had a slender green stem like that of many land plants, but its leaves were of the colour & gelatinous consistency of brown seaweed

These two specimens were gathered at the end of last summer.

No 6 was gathered after the first rain — a floating grass which I fancied at the time might be a natural inhabitant of the water, but thought afterwards, was much more likely to be a land plant washed out by the lashing of the rising waters of the Lake. The specimen was however at the time otherwise interesting from a growth, whether of animal or vegetable formation, in the form of a nearly circular disk 1/4 to 5/16 of an inch in diameter, binding together & including in its substance portions of three or four of the grass blades and seemed to me at least, singular, in having all round its edge a series of little straight sticks ranged at regular intervals round the edge of and at right angles to, the disk & projecting projecting2 to equal distances both above and below it, giving the whole quite the appearance of a cogged wheel, or rather of a spiked wheel capable of driving two cogged wheels; one above, the other below. Unfortunately, however, having placed this specimen with others under a slight pressure nearly all these regular spikes got broken off & disappeared the remains of a few being only left at one end, and these may also disappear before the specimen reaches you.

The other Lake plants No 3 Blade and fruit of Sword-Sedge, No 4 Jointed Rush hollow stem divided by numerous transverse membranes — and No 5 specimens of ordinary Rush — are in little box with the fossil fruits, which I will take to Railway same time as I post this.

The fossil fruits I endeavoured to describe in former letter3 — The big but not handsome 'orange' I picked up myself. I would have sent two, but box would not quite close on it. The supposed tooth found in the stomach of a barracouta here, I send with the fruits It is much less fresh-coloured now, both in the bony substance & the veins tinged with blood. I told McKenzie that I thought it might be a Dugong's tooth as these animals are said to have 12 molars (& 2 incisors) fewer when old that when young — but on second thoughts this solution seemed rather improbable

Last letter my Cash a/c left me I think 15/ in your debt since then I have against you box which cost 6d & Railway freight which will be 8d leaving balance against me of 13/10d. This I thought of sending you as formerly proposed, but think it would be better to defer it till I learn more of No 2 Racecourse — & of a claim being [made] by a Chinese publican

Yours obediently

D W Spence

 

Hydrocharidae

 
The pages are numbered 5 and 6; the preceding four pages of the MS are missing.
Word repeated in going from one page to next.
Letter not found.

Please cite as “FVM-84-00-00e,” 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 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/84-00-00e