June 17 /85
My dear Baron
I enclose herewith Mr Baker's naming of your Ferns.1 I do hope that your efforts to get New Guinea explored will be crowned with success, but I know from experience how many reapers one must send out to get in a little corn.
Very many thanks for the Xanthorrhoea stems which have not yet arrived.2 — I hope they will live, but all that we have hitherto received died after throwing out a fine head of leaves & sometimes a flower spike as a dying effort.
What you say of Fropiera may be true,3 I forget all about it except that it puzzled us all here, Oliver, Bentham &c. I have no time to look at it again. All my time now goes to Flora of British India,4 the completion of which will take the rest of my working days if I live long enough to complete it. Part XII should be out but the printing is unaccountably delayed & I bully the publisher about it to no purpose!
I have matter to the end of Loranthaceae except Laurineae for which I am expecting some materials from Dr King. Myristiceae gave me a great deal of trouble, & is after all left in a very unsatisfactory state.
Mr Bentham's affairs are not settled yet.
Very sincerely yr
Jos D Hooker
Your tree ferns are splendid in the Temperate House.
Fropiera
Laurineae
Loranthaceae
Myristiceae
Xanthorrhoea
Please cite as “FVM-85-06-17a,” 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 26 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/85-06-17a