26/1/88.
When the centennial anniversary of the independence of the U.S. was celebrated, my honored and venerable friend, you wrote me a letter, which I treasure among my best epistolar possessions.1 Now it is my turn, to write you on the most memorable day of Australia,2 when the second century of its settlement is commencing! You wrote, that you would devote such a day of honor to correspondence with science-friends; and this sentiment I share so completely, that I also shall devote this day to communications with the learned, who honored me with their friendship. I telegraphed my felication to Sydney, whence I was invited;3 so I have done thus far my homage also on this grand historic occasion! —
Hardly any special question is before me, concerning which I should adress you, though thousands of objects interest us mutually, but could not be discussed by letter-writing.
I am grateful, that divine will has spared me, to live into the second century of Australian civilisation, and to witness what the energy and enterprise of the British nation has accomplished so gloriously within such a space of time also in her Majesty's Australian Dominions!
To myself only a very brief period of worldly existence can be left; but it is with some pride, that I look back now to the results of more than 40 years uninterrupted toil in endeavouring to advance the interests of these great southern lands, humbly though, in applied geography, rural development and abstract science.
To the fullest extent do I concur with your views of the indesirability of superseding the first specific name in a correctly chosen genus; it was one of the reasons for the chronology of Austral plants in the "Census",4 to subdue that practice, to which Bentham even adhered yet in the earlier volumes of the Austral. Flora5 — he then even yet writing to me, that if he made not such changes, to which I was opposed, others would — to drag forward a name for a species wrongly placed before as regards its genus. On this and many other points, concerning the systematic key of Vict. plants,6 I am just writing an essay;7 and I crave of you, to withhold any review of that work, until this essay will be before you.8
Ever regardfully yours
Ferd. von Mueller.
Please cite as “FVM-88-01-26,” 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 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/88-01-26