To Henry Deane   14 November 1886

14/11/86.

 

I owe you, dear Mr Deane, an acknowledgement of your kind letter and sending of Melaleuca-twig since some days;1 — but it is only at quiet Sunday-hour now, that I can attend to your plant. It seems to me a species of its own, and so I named it after you;2 but — as remarked in the description, which is soon to pass into print, it may perhaps be a luxuriant form of M. parviflora; in that case the specific name will stand as that of variety.

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

Have you any friends towards Central Australia, whom you could kindly induce to dry all sorts of plants, (which the natives in barter might perhaps bring to the stations) for material, to trace further the geographic distribution of the various species? Even specimens quite shrivelled up would be acceptable, so long as fruit was yet on them. Among minute plants and Saltbushes would be particularly some novelty.

 

Melaleuca

Letter not found.See also M to W. Woolls, 13 September 1886.
M described Melaleuca deanei in B87.13.06, p. 1106.

Please cite as “FVM-86-11-14,” 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 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/86-11-14