To William Thiselton-Dyer   22 October 1884

22/10/84¹

In first instance I like to mention, dear Mr Dyer, that I have forwarded to you by this post under Sir Joseph’s adress a little box with tubers of Phylloglossum in soil. They are lying still dormant from last season having been kept hitherto in pots; they are however in a good state of vitality, and doubtless will yield you well developing plants in the spring, if you start them in your South-African or Australian Conservatory. The smaller box contains fruiting specimens of Phylloglossum, taken out of alcohol, so that they could be sent by post. The soil, on which this plantlet is growing, consists of sandy loam, with some heathy particles in it; it may be best to try 2 or 3 mixtures of soil; slight humidity of the soil is needed. Naturally the plant fruits here in Sept. and Oct., our full spring, and then withers, the tuber forming for next years growth. Should the plant produce fruits in Kew, you may see the prothallus &c by raising fresh spores. Dried spores I sent repeatedly, but they appear to have failed to develop any growth.

I will send you a living fernstem with Tmesipteris on it about March, so that the stem with its epiphyte may arrive at Kew after the frosts.

Ipomoea calobra may yield a new table esculent.² The seeds grow at Antibes³

I have asked a friend on the Murray-River for spurious Mellitose there and an other nearer here for the genuine one. The question has been discussed, concerning these in the 10th Decade of the Eucalyptography,⁴ which at last the Gov. Printer has put into the binders hands.

My ferntrees arriving there in August may have not much chance to get through your winter, so soon coming on, before being established by some bottom-warmth. Should they perish in the cold weather under the proposed temporary winter-protection, I will send you an other lot in March, which arriving in May, would have a better chance to get naturalized. It is very cheering to me, that you and Sir Joseph speak so kindly about this sending,⁵ because - after giving up for 17 years of my life more time to horticulture than to Botany, I regard it as a “point d'honneur” to resist all attempts, to keep me out of the fields of horticulture, when by my field knowledge and long Garden experience I should stand at the head of all cultures in this colony.

Sir Joseph speaks also most kindly of the sending of samples of the plants, added by me to what was described by him, whom I shall always call the “great Bentham”! Now in justice to these sendings and in fairness to my Department, allow me one remark. In the Kew Reports (the annual ones) simply the number of specimens are noted, as received from various senders. Now, it appears to me, that in exceptional cases like mine at present, to the record of the number might be added half a dozen words to the effect, that the species were typical and nearly all new in the Kew collection. Otherwise when it happens (as last year) that you g[o]t⁶ a parcel of plants from a neighbouring Australian establishment, which contains probably not a single novelty, but may run up to a few hundred species also, the bare mentioning of the number would bring it at a par of my own “selection” of absolute novelties, while the other lot would be an unnamed “collection”, at best giving only various new localities. In such cases (of course) the one collection would exceed the other a hundred times in value.⁷

I am gratefully sensitive of your generous action for me in 1879,⁸ and add a hope that in due course your own brilliant services will also lead to promotion, which you are sure to enjoy through a great number of years, while mine can not be expected to be a source of gratification and encouragement to me for but a comparatively short time in life!

Ever regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller

Ipomoea calobra

Phylloglossum

Tmesipteris