From Joseph Hooker1    16 April 1888

The Camp.

Sunningdale.

April 16 /88

My dear Baron

Dyer tells me that you would kindly accept a more modern photograph of me than that you have. I take so little count of such things that I have no idea what it is you have; but on the chance I enclose what is not I hope a duplicate — if it is please do what you please with it. I still think that the one by G. Wallich which was published in a series of Presidents &c by that gentleman is the best though faint.2

I also send an excellent little one of my father, taken not many years before he died.3

My son Brian tells me that he is married to a Victorian Lady; I hope he has made a sensible match.4

I am still toiling at the Indian Flora, & now correcting the proofs of the Urticeae, which Order has given me a great deal of trouble. — Especially such genera as Pilea & Elatostemma, in which though I have reduced Weddell's there still I fear remain many bad species. Ficus has I am glad to say been done by King, a recent important contribution to Botany is his "Indo-Malaya Fici"5 — no one else I expect could have done it. Poor Miquels work is scattered to the winds — as I quite expected it would be. Miquel was an old & very warm friend of mine, & I knew his family well, both at Rotterdam & Utrecht.

Systematic Botany seems almost centred at Kew, & yet what splendid collections there are at Leyden, Paris & St Petersburgh. I do wish that Maximowicz would publish a compendious Flora of Japan & that the Dutch in Java would take up the Malayan Flora. The Flora of the Straits Settlements is to be undertaken by King with me for a referee at Kew — King himself will I am glad to say be home this Summer, in the end of May, & will I suppose lay the foundations of the work. his leave will be only for 6 months so he will have plenty to do.

C. B. Clarke is hard at work at Cyperaceae he is most pains taking an6 accurate.

I have been attacking the India Orchideae, by way of keeping my hand in at dissecting & finished Oberonia, with nearly 40 species — so many are almost uniques that I suspect India is full of them.

Ever my dear Baron

most sincerely yr

Jos D Hooker

 

Cyperaceae

Elatostemma

Ficus

Oberonia

Orchidea

Pilea

Urticeae

 
1
MS is black edged. MS annotation by M: 'Answ 22/6/88. F.v.M.' Letter not found.
2
Published by John van Voorst in 1870 in a set entitled ' Eminent Men of the Day: photographs by George Charles Wallich'; see National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG Ax14784.
3
Neither of the photographs sent by Hooker has been found.
4
Sophie Willan, daughter of Precious Clark Willan, a selector of Morwell, Vic, married Brian Hooker at Traralgon, Vic, on 2 January 1888 (Victoria, Certificate of Marriage 394, 1888).
5
King (1888).
6
and?

Please cite as “FVM-88-04-16,” 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 26 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/88-04-16