To William Thiselton-Dyer   3 October 1888

3/10/88.1

 

Best thanks, dear Mr Dyer, for the names-list of N. Guin. plants so zealously worked out by Mr Baker.2 When I have calmed down after the Exhib. Duties, Medical Congress &c,3 I hope to resume the issue of the "Papuan Plants",4 when the list can be turned to full account. Speaking of ferns, Gleichenia dicarpa would doubtless be quite hardy at Kew as it is high-alpine here. At all events you might let the Rev D. Landsborough try it at Arran.5 When trusted out, it ought to be placed on any little irrigation-channel, as it lines here the alpine Rivulets, together with Lomaria alpina. When Mr Baker will bring out a new Edit of the Synopsis filicum,6 could he be induced to place Cheilanthes next to Notochlaena and to abolish Gymnogramme by the restoration of Grammitis? for Notochlaena vellea is a priority of 11 years over N. lanuginosa, 7 and Aiton published his A. velleum8 already in the first edition of the Hort. Kewensis. Has never yet a specimen of Polypodium membranifolium RBr turned up?

Regardfully your

Ferd von Mueller.

 

I have changed Dicksonia davallioides into Davallia dicksonioides; thus it fits much better into my "Key."9

 

Acrostichum velleum

Cheilanthes

Davallia dicksonioides

Dicksonia davallioides

Gleichenia dicarpa

Grammitis

Gymnogramme

Lomaria alpina

Notochlaena lanuginosa

Notochlaena vellea

Polypodium membranifolium

 
1
Date stamped: Royal Gardens Kew 12. Nov. 88. Annotated in pencil by Thiseleton-Dyer: Mr Baker, and [by Thiselton-Dyer?] And 14.11.88 . (letter not found).
2
See M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 6 July 1888. List not found.
3
Centennial International Exhibition, Melbourne, 1888-9; Intercolonial Medical Congress, Melbourne, January 1889. M was president of the Therapeutics section at the latter.
4
B90.05.01; this was the last part to be published under the series title Descriptive notes on Papuan plants , although galley proofs of a later part exist in the library of the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.
5
See Gardeners' chronicle , 24 November 1883, p. 668, for a report of the meeting of the Edinburgh Botanical Society where Landsborough discussed the 'growth of half-hardy plants in the east coast of Arran'.
6
The second and last edition of Hooker & Baker (1865-8) was published in 1874 and reissued in 1883 (TL2).
7
In B89.13.12, p. 231, M treated Notochlaena and Notholaena as orthograhic variants, and as synonyms of the earlier Cheilanthes .
8
Acrostichum velleum .
9
B88.11.02; but in B89.13.12, p. 231, M retained Dicksonia davalloides .

Please cite as “FVM-88-10-03a,” 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 25 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/88-10-03a