21/7/86.
The mail brought me just your kind letter of the 31 May,1 dear Mr Dyer, and altho’ I am much pressed with departmental work, I must not leave your communication unanswered. You and the excellent Mr Baker may have thought the fern-sending to Eberswalde2 of far more importance, than it is. You certainly shall have specimens of any novelty, Luerssen may describe; and if you need the Papuan specimens for representive3 completeness, you can have a portion of each. Only let me have a little time, to make up a larger consignment, as we are here just so very busy now. There seems to be no hurry about the ferns, as no immediate prospect for a new edition of the “synopsis”4 seems to exist.
Xanthorrhoea Preissii grows in more fertile land, meadows, pastures &c, than X. quadrangulata. It likes however sandy turfy soil or rather heathy sand soil, and I fancy it will be the species, that will give the least trouble in culture, unless X. Tateana.5
X. quadrangulata is a mountain-species, which likes slaty and sandstone-rocks or rather their detritus. This gives you some idea, what soil it wants; but big things, like most Xanthorrhoeas, need ample space for their roots and still ampler surroundings, to get nourishment from; and that surrounding of soil should from time to time be renewed, as I wrote you before, otherwise the6 will be simply starved to death. It seems to me, that you need in your temperate house a bed for them,7 indeed a large one, to give them full scope, and of course you can put for variety’s sake put other Australian or S African Heath-plants among them.
- These hurried notes in answer to your enquiry! X. semiplana inhabits low sandy heath-lands (not as X. quadrangulata, rocky hills) I will send you a good specimen of X. australis soon. That grows in moory sandy ground, and likes wetness It delight8 in a “sour” soil, such as you have so much on your sandy heathy moors; so you will have no difficulty in getting for it its proper food.
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.
If the Vict. Commissioners got their plants from within this colony, than9 it is X. australis!10
The leaves of some X. are similar, but bracts flowers and seeds differ & also resin!11
The fragment of print, to which you allude, must have been some proof pages of the “Key”, of which little work you will have since received the second part complete;12 the first is not yet ready with the difficult dichotomia, forced on me by a few of the field naturalists here while, I intended to go on with the “native plants”;13 - but at all events the woodcuts are now all ready. I used for 30 years and more to send to Sir William and Sir Joseph Hooker proof-sheets of anything under progress, if I had any to spare; subsequently the complete work was sent; if at any time a publication goes astray, I strive to replace it. In such a long postal line some things might go amiss.
You seem not yet to have a clear idea about Correa Lawrenciana Hooker;14 it belongs almost exclusively to the fagus-zone, endures therefore some frost, is a very tall plant, forming gregariously dense underwood, much interwoven, through which many times I had to cut my way in the subalpine regions. It commences upwards on the mountains, where C. speciosa ceases to advance; hence C. Lawrenciana, as you can see in the “Census”,15 is restricted to Vict., Tasm. & a small wet cool portion of N.S.W. not occurring in South Australia and Queensland, to which Correa speciosa extends, the latter reaching to the Great Bight, but is precluded by that great barrier, to get across to West-Australia, like so many other S. E. Austr plants.
In my “report” to Parliament of 187416 (of which a copy is at Kew,) I allude to the importance of the discovery of a red-flowering variety of C. Lawr., then made by me, at the base of the Alps, and it has not been found elsewhere since, so that I had to supply Mr Abbott in Hobart - Imagine an outdoor plant for the S. of England! to 30' high with shining leaves!17
As you write for a copy of the “Key”, I certainly must admit that I never sent the two last editions of the “select plants”, simply because of none of the former editions was ever any litterary notice taken at Kew, not even did I get a friendly word of acknowledgement of receipt - so I feared my sending of the new editions might look intrusive; if however you wish to utilize the work at Kew, a copy could easily be got from the Vict. Court (new edition).18
I would advise, to hybridise at Kew C. Lawr. & C. speciosa var. cardinalis.19
I have rooted cuttings of the redflowered Corr. Lawrenciana in pots, so I will send a pot by a befriended passenger.20
Correa Lawrenciana
Correa speciosa
Xanthorrhoea australis
Xanthorrhoea Preissii
Xanthorrhoea quadrangulata
Xanthorrhoea semiplana
Xanthorrhoea Tateana
The interleaved f. 187 is a memorandum from W. Thiselton-Dyer to William Watson dated 4 September 1886:
Please read and take note of Sir F. v. M’s valuable notes about Xanthorrhoeas
I like the idea of having a bed of them in Temp. House. Please move Mr Morris to see what can be done as to securing the [retent]ion of those at the Exhibn. or which perhaps still remain at Chiswick
Watson responded on 9 September by annotating the memorandum:
There is one Xanthorrhoea at Chiswick and there are nine at the Ex. in Victoria Ct. Mr Barron would recommend that the latter should be taken out of their present quarters as they are not thriving. I failed to see the Commd. Mr Thomson. He might be written that these plants are certain to perish if allowed to remain at the Exhibn. much longer, and as they are not a prominent feature among the plant exhibits they might easily be taken away without making any gap. We gave a set of valuable plants (see list) [list not found] to this court. The Todea is in fine health and quite safe. There are some large and handsome blocks of Quartz (white) arranged among the plants and as these were brought from the Colony it would be worth while securing them for Kew when Exhibition is over.
Daniel Morris annotated the margin (22 September) reporting that he had written to M and to Joseph Thomson.
Folio 190 is a memorandum from W. Thiselton-Dyer to William Watson dated 4 September 1886:
I dont remember what I asked of Sir F. v. M in regard to Correa. Please report what we want him to do and move Mr Morris to write.
Watson responded by annotating the memorandum:
We asked for seeds of the red flowered variety of C. Lawrenciana of which Sir F. von Mueller sent cuttings in oil-paper or skin but they arrived quite dead. Reference is made to this sending in a previous letter - early this year I imagine - C. Lawrenciana typical is already at Kew. [See M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 6 April 1886 (in this edition as 86-04-06a).]
A further annotation by Daniel Morris indicates that he wrote to M asking for seeds of the ‘red flowered Correa’ on 22 September 1886 [letter not found].
Please cite as “FVM-86-07-21a,” 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/86-07-21a