To Joseph Hooker   18 November 1884

18/11/84

 

It is with great delight, dear Sir Joseph, that I hear of the intention, to erect some permanent and public token of remembrance of the “great Bentham” at Kew.1 It needs not my assurance, that I will gladly contribute towards it as a subscriber, and if you will kindly let me know, what has been given by some others, I shall have a fair guidance in my monetary sending to you.

I find it very difficult to apply the dichotomous method for forming a key to the Victorian flora, as demanded from me. The dichotomia runs often out, the genera and particularly species get confoundedly dispersed, and conspicuous characteristics cannot always be found for tyros, to contrast the next form binary[i]ly.2

Regardfully your

Ferd von Mueller.

 
1
See Gardeners’ Chronicle, 4 October 1884, p. 432, col. b, and 11 October 1884, p. 44, cols b and c. The memorial took the form of a copy, painted by Emily Mary Merrick, of the portrait of Bentham by Lowes Cato Dickinson in the Linnean Society collection. It was completed by July 1885 and installed at Kew by September (Gardeners’ Chronicle, 4 July 1885, p. 16, col. c, and 19 September 1885, p. 369, cols b and c).
2
See B88.13.03.

Please cite as “FVM-84-11-18a,” 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 9 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/84-11-18a