4/10/84
Some time ago, dear Mr Newbery you kindly promised me some samples of Chromiron, wanted by one of the Professors in Germany; but perhaps in the multitude of your engagements, you may have not been able, to follow up the matter. I am myself reminded of this request by some recent letters from Germany; — so if you could help me in this, I should feel very much obliged indeed. Or perhaps you might be able to tell me, to whom I could apply for this purpose.
Have you a copy of my volume on "select plants for industrial culture and naturalisation"1 in your private library; if not, I will be happy to send you one.
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller
I was sorry to hear of Mr Barnard's illness.2 He must have been incautious, while rambling in late hours through fever-jungles of N. Queensland.
The most recent edition, published in Sydney (B81.01.04), was entitled Select extra-tropical plants readily eligible for industrial culture or naturalisation ..., However, M often referred in correspondence to this and later editions with the same title simply as 'Select plants'.
Frederick William Barnard (c.1830-1909) prepared wood blocks for the technological museum (see notes to M to W. Thistleton-Dyer, 22 June 1886). His son, Frederick William Barnard (1857-1949), had moved to north Qld in the late 1870s, moving to Mossman about 1881 ('Frederick W. Barnard', Cairns post, 14 September 1949, p. 5), and M's comment suggests that his father may have visited the area, perhaps being the collector of the specimens at MEL dated 1883 and 1884, mostly from the Port Douglas-Mossman area, and attributed to '[Barnard, F.W.]'. No evidence has been found that F. W. Barnard Jnr was a collector.
Please cite as “FVM-84-10-04,” 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