18/10/88
It is delightful to contemplate, dear Prof Tate, that you will have the means of early bringing out a volume on the plants of the S.A. territory. What an enormous gain such a work will be for educational purposes and for intellectual recreation!1
I presume, your treating the subject will be somewhat like Prof Babingtons or Sir J. Hookers of the British Flora,2 or like the "native plants" of Victoria, of which latter you will have the only part, which appeared, that of the Choripetaleae hypogynae3 Now with the help of the Key,4 the work can be easily completed.
I am glad, that Cassinia punctulata can now be settled by us conjointly.5 You might give a preliminary note of it at your R.S.6 With the just concluding of the Select pl.,7 and the Key, and the Extrawork for the Medical Congress8 before me, I shall find it difficult, to collect my thoughts until the Exhibition9 is over for any connected descriptive work, as I like to bring all or most arrears up in any genus, if I have to elucidate some novelty. Still, if you like it better, I will draw up a mere diagnosis of the Cassinia punctulata.
As regards several msc. names for it kindly remember,
1, that I have to name plants for correspondents often by the midnight-lamp, when I am tired from the days routine-work and eyes get dim!
2, that frequently the material sent by correspondents is so small and defective, that I am apt to fail recognizing any critical spec.
3, that I have no leisure, when naming specimens hurriedly for correspondents, to refer to the herbarium, therefore must trust to memory, which in a sexagenarian may occasionally be treacherous.
You stand in a proud position in working progressively in three sciences. It shall be arranged in my Museum, that every week some plants are picked out for you, so that each week a parcel can go by post to you. I have only 2 people in the Museum, who have of course duties daily, among which that of keeping 600,000 sheets of plants free from insects is not the least. In so large a collection it takes also up much more time, to find out any particular species than in a smaller herbarium. Mr Bailey has also just sent a list of QL.10 plants, which he has never yet seen. From the bot Garden of Adelaide he received a great many, sent by me to the Exhib.11 from Lt. Dittrichs collecting at the W. boundary of QL.12
Imperata used in the 40-er years to be common at the sandhills near the reedbeds betw. Pt Adelaide and your city
Regardfully your
Ferd von Mueller
It seems that Xanthorrh Tateana is Victorian also at Bordertown,13 but I am not yet sure
The introduced plant at Castlemaine14 is Spergula pentandra L. Did you never find it in S.A. yet
Cassinia punctulata
Choripetaleae
Imperata
Spergula pentandra
Xanthorrhoea tateana
The planned work became Tate (1890).
Presumably Babington (1843); J. Hooker (1884), or other editions.
B79.06.04.
B88.11.02.
See M to R. Tate, 7 October 1888.
Royal Society.
B88.12.01.
M was president of the Therapeutics section of the Intercolonial Medical Congress, Melbourne, January 1889.
Centennial International Exhibition, Melbourne, 1888-9.
Qld. Bailey left a list of desiderata with M's assistant; see F. Bailey to M, August 1888 (in this edition as 88-08-00). F. Bailey to M, 13 October 1888, known only from a brief entry in Bailey's letterbook, may have also been a renewed request.
Jubilee International Exhibition, Adelaide, 1887.
Hermann Dittrich collected when he was with David Lindsay on an exploration of eastern NT and western Qld, 1885-6.
SA. M had described Xanthorrhoea tateana in B85.07.01, p. 294.
Vic.
Please cite as “FVM-88-10-18,” 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