27/3/87
It needs not my assurance, dear Ettie, that I will at any time name plants for you. Perhaps you will paint the Sprengelia incarnata also which grows in a heath swamp a dozen miles distant from your place.
In that locality some other rare plants may occur. If you can send me some Muntries,1 when next you gather them, I shall feel obliged as I like to send the berries to the Mediterranean Sea where on sandy shores this useful and pretty plant might by sowing the seeds, become naturalized. It was one of the first plants I ever named, as far back as 1848 — Kunzea pomifera. I met Professor Kunze of Leipzig in the annual gathering of physicians and naturalists of Germany in 1846.2 He is long dead, like many other of my scientific friends. Be sure when the spring season sets in again not to pass the minutest weeds among which may yet be new kinds there. I hope your eldest brother will continue collecting when he passes over the country, as the region about Silverton is almost new for plants.3 Pray express my kindest regards to your dear mother and brothers and sisters. With best wishes for you
Ferdinand von Mueller
Kunzea pomifera
Sprengelia incarnata
MS annotation by Daley when he edited this letter: '"Muntries" to which he refers in the above letter is a myrtaceous plant found in Victoria and South Australia on the South-West Coast on the sand-hills'. In M. Adler, ed., Common names of plants (1994), Muntries is identified as Kunzea pomifera.
The 1846 Kiel Congress (Amtlicher Bericht über die 24 Versammlung Deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte in Kiel im September 1846).
Ferdinand Wehl. There are specimens collected by him in the region of Sillverton and Broken Hill in NSW at MEL, collected between 1886 and 1890. See F. Wehl to M, 27 February 1886, and Dowe et al. (2020).
Letter not found. MS is a transcription by Charles Daley included in his draft biography of M.
Please cite as “FVM-87-03-27,” 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