To Joseph Hooker   23 March 1884

23/3/84.

 

It is my pleasant duty, dear Sir Joseph, to acknowledge the receipt of part XI of your great “Fl. of Brit. Ind.”.1 This new one brings the work many steps forward. What a boon it will be, when the whole opus shall be ready, and how it will promote particularly the study of plants in India. Allow me to say, that in the notes on geographic distribution many omissions occur as regards Australia. The copy of Mr Dyer's new guide to the Museum of economic Botany2 is also very acceptable, and I am sure to find therein various data, which I can utilize, if I live, for the next edition of the “select plants”3

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

Notes on Kew Guide to economic Botany.4 The fragrant Sandal-wood of W.A. is derived from S. cygnorum;5 No smell of any strenght in S. acuminatum.

Pelargonium 3 species available for oil-distillation; see “select plants”6

Plum of Davidsonia sent by me, illustrative for Saxifrageae7

Citrullus much cultivated also in the W. hemisphere.

Gardenia lucida and some other species resin. (like Styrax Benzoin chemically)

Near Melbourne is a village Kew; a first rate English Gardener, Mr James Roberts, has an Exotic nursery there; with him I correspond much, hence the “lapsus calami” in the adress of one of my last letters to you.

 
 

Citrullus

Davidsonia

Gardenia lucida

Pelargonium

Santalum acuminatum

Santalum cygnorum

Saxifrageae

Styrax

 
1
M received one of 35 presentation copies of this part of J. Hooker (1875-97); f. 20, headed ‘Part XI’, is a list in an unknown hand of 35 numbered names including ‘7 Mueller’. The first entry is ‘1&2 Herbarium 6 Feby 1884’; the other copies were probably also distributed at about that date. A few other letters acknowledging receipt are bound after f. 20.
2
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (1883), prepared by William Thiselton-Dyer..
3
The next edition was B85.13.26.
4
These notes are on a separate sheet, now filed separately at RBG Kew, Kew Correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1882-90, f. 98, that may have been sent separately either to Hooker or to Thiselton-Dyer.
5
Annotated by Thiselton-Dyer: want.
6
See B81.13.10, p. 229.
7
Davidsonia underlined and annotated by Thiselton-Dyer: Want good Museum sample.

Please cite as “FVM-84-03-23,” 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 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/84-03-23