30/12/86
Allow me to mention, dear Mr Jackson, that you might be able at a very moderate expenditure, to obtain the experienced aid of Herr J. A. Knapp of Vienne. for your great opus.1 This Gentleman, as you may be aware, has been engaged for years in botanical Bibliography at the Vienne Apotheker-Verein. His engagement there, which was an inexpensive one, has closed since he returned from a botanical Journey to Persia, the tour — I believe — being made on his own expense.2 Mr Knapp could be communicated with through Prof. Dr. Kerner, the Director of the botanic Garden of Vienna.
What a boon your name-lists will be for all times! I shall not likely live to benefit from them.
With best felicitation at the anniversary of of3 Christian era
Yours,
Ferd. von Mueller.
for your great opus interlined between sentences. Jackson had been working on the compilation of what became Index Kewensis (Jackson (1895)) since 1881, see Jackson (1924).
But see his entry in Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon ( (accessed 14 October 2020)), which reports that his trip was financed by Jacob Pollak, an Austrian physician and explorer who had worked in Persia in the 1850s-1860s. Some of his collections from this trip are described by specialists in Wettstein (1889).
word repeated: our?
Please cite as “FVM-86-05-30a,” 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