To William Thiselton-Dyer   2 May 1886

2/5/86.1

 

Let me thank you, dear Mr Dyer, for the seeds just received and for various previous sendings. They come in always in usefully one way or the other. So feel much beholden to you; they always are sent on at once to me from the Governors Office.

You were so good to offer me some time ago the native Japanese publication2 on plants, of which Kew had a copy to spare.3 I find that I did not yet acknowledge that gracious offer; if not too late, I gladly accept it.4 If you not have an opportunity to send it direct, it would come with other books from Dulau & Co.

I was since some time quite unable to complete the collection of the additional Australian collections at Kew. The Exhibition of London,5 Royal Commission for new vegetable industries (for which a new edition of the “select plants”6 had to be brought out, as ours of 18767 was here exhausted), also work in connection with New Guinea pressed me hard in addition to the always heavy routine work. I did not leave my work tables all the Easter holidays, except one evening, when I attended on the Capt and Officers of the “Vestnick”.8

Regardfully your

Ferd von Mueller

 

The printer has not yet finished the notes for the Myoporinae;9 so the volume will get late to the Exhibition.10

 
1
Annotated by Thiselton-Dyer in purple pencil to left of date: 18.6.86 | I think this must have been otherwise disposed of. W.T.T.D. | And 10/7/86 [letter not found].
2
native Japanese publication underlined in blue pencil.
3
Letter not found.
4
In a memorandum (f. 174, D. Oliver to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 19 June 1886), Oliver suggested that the 20 volumes of the requested publication (Yokusai et al., [1874]) could be made up into a box containing parcels of herbarium specimens. The back of the memorandum lists the other contents of the box. It contained some plants being returned to M, plants from India, Fiji, [St Helena] and Australia (from Miers’ herbarium). A parcel from W. Mitten, some fungi, and some algae from W. G. Farlow were also included. It was sent on 10 July. See M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 31 August 1886 and 2 October 1886, and M to W. Mitten, 3 October 1886.
5
Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886.
6
B85.13.26.
7
B76.13.03.
8
Vestnick, a corvette of the Russian Navy, arrived in Melbourne on 27 March 1886; the captain and officers were received at the Town Hall by the Mayor of Melbourne on 31 March and attended a concert in the Zoological Gardens on 10 April. No events in which the officers took part have been found for the Easter period (Easter Sunday, 25 April): a reception may have been held on board before it departed on 30 April, but no evidence has been found.
9
B86.13.21.
10
The printer ...Exhibition written in central and left margins, f 173 back.

Please cite as “FVM-86-05-02,” 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 20 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/86-05-02