To Daniel Morris   3 November 1886

3/11/861

 

In the multitudinous and varied engagements here, dear Mr Morris, I am often left in incertainty, whether I wrote or answered a letter or stopped short at the intention. If therefore I did not yet offer you my felicitation to your distinguished new position, accept it now still with all my best wishes that your great talent and large working power will through many years be brought to bear on the florishing of the great British phytologic Department; and that your exertions in that grand cause will be conducive also to your own happiness!2

As seemingly no provision is made for maintaining the warmth, needful for the ferntrees &c in the Exhibition-Building, I should certainly be glad to see my giant Todea timely and safely over to Kew. I can yet provide one (though one only) of similar size from one secluded valley of the Ranges beyond Dandenong, so that the Jubilee Institute can be provided with an other after the English frost.3

Correa Lawrenciana, that splendid hardy (frost bearing) tall shrub, I have in its redflowering variety growing from cuttings here in the few square yards of garden yet available to me; as soon as I can find a Passenger to take a couple of the pots, they shall be forwarded to you; but it is best, to arrange it so, that they arrive there early in spring.

I am quite proud of your recommendation of the Detroit-Edition of the “Select plants”4. You can understand, that for Victoria a special book was required, our cultural scope being ten times as large as that of Britain; and it being impossible to reply to the many hundred annual enquiries for information on new cultures always by letter. I would send a copy of the subsequent Vict. Edition, still somewhat more enlarged;5 but the whole 1000 copies were sold from the Gov Printing Office in 6 months, so that I have to see early in 1887 an other through the press.6 Meanwhile you might get a copy of the last one from Sir Graham Berry or Mr Bosisto.7 I shall try to keep each edition up to the [requ]irements of the time.

Would any visitor bring me a direct (not the garden here) a strong plant of Vaccinium macrocarpum.8

Always regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

I still like much information on the wood of the Buxus sp. of Jamaica9.

 

Buxus

Correa Lawrenciana

Todea

Vaccinium macrocarpum

1
Annotated by Morris in red pencil: ansd 14/1 87. Letter not found.
2
Morris had been appointed Assistant Director of Kew Gardens.
3
See M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 21 October 1886.
4
B84.13.22. Morris’s recommendation has not been found. It may have been a comment in a letter (not found) by Morris to M, c. 22 September 1886 (see annotations on M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 21 July 1867) to which this letter seems to be an answer.
5
B85.12.03.
6
B88.12.01.
7
Berry was Agent General for Victoria and the Executive Commissioner for the Victorian contribution; Bosisto was the President of the Victorian Commission in London (Colonial and Indian Exhibition, Official Catalogue, 2nd edition, 1886, p. xviii).
8

There is a vertical red pencil line and the annotation by Morris Sent seed 14/1 87 next to me a direct ... macrocarpum.

The recognised name is V. macrocarpon, which M used in B85.12.03, p. 391, but the name V. macrocarpum was commonly used, for example, Gardeners’ Chronicle, 9 May 1874, p. 605, where the American methods of cultivating this cranberry were described.

9
I still ... Jamaica is written in the right hand margin, f. 206 back.

Please cite as “FVM-86-11-03d,” 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/86-11-03d