To Annie Lindsay   9 December 1885

9/12/85

 

My best thanks are due to you, dear Madam, for sending me the beautiful photogram of Mr Lindsay and his party.1 I rejoyce to hear of their fair progress, and shall look eagerly forward for tidings of their return from the lower Finke River,2 not only as we are all interested to learn of its whole course and extent, but also as likely this expedition of your husband will set at rest all roumours concerning Leichhardt and his companions. The seeds you forwarded are of Nitraria Billardierii, a bush which when I travelled 1847 & afterwards on St Vincents & Spencers Gulf3 afforded me often its refreshing fruits; now these shrubs are probably much eaten down anywhere by pastoral animals.

Let me hope that Mr Lindsay will triumphantly return in due time

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

When writing to your husband send my best expressions for his success.

 

Nitraria Billardierii

 
1
Letter not found. See D. Lindsay to M, 21 October 1885 (in this edition as 85-10-21c), where Lindsay wrote that the exploring party had been photographed that day and that his wife would send a copy of the photograph to M. The picture is not in M's surviving photograph album in the library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.
2
SA.
3
SA.

Please cite as “FVM-85-12-09,” 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 24 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/85-12-09