To William Thiselton-Dyer   23 January 1889

23/1/891

 

By this mail, dear Mr Dyer, I beg to send you a branch of a Cactus-like Euphorbia, of which Governor McGregor just forwarded a plant from the Louisiades:2 In all probability this branch will reach you in a growing state, so that the species on culture may become definable. As yet we had no big succulent Euphorbia from New Guinea or Polynesia, altho E. corynoclada is also an almost arborescent cactus-like plant from an Island near Cape York.3

Regardfully

always your

Ferd. von Mueller4

 

Euphorbia corynoclada

 
Date stamped: Royal Gardens Kew 3. Mar. 89. Annotated in red ink by[by W. Watson?]: Ackt sent 8/3/89 (letter not found), in black ink [by Watson?]: , and in pencil by Thiselton-Dyer: And 24.5.89 (letter not found).
Archipelago SE of New Guinea.
Identified as Woiweer Island, a ‘small islet … about ten miles west of Thursday-Island’ in B86.04.03 (See APNI).

Annotated in black ink by Watson on the left half of f. 269 front:

Seeds

Livistona sp. Louisiades

Fagraea sp.  " 

Recd 4-3-89

Euphorbia dried up and long dead.

Could he establish plants and send them in a Wards Case?

The reciept of these items is noted in the 'Kew Inwards book 1888-1892', p. 147 in entry 115 for 1889, dated 5 March. All items are recorded as from Louisades Archipelago, with a later note 'Pacific Ocean' partially overwritten im a different hand on the first mention of 'Archipelago'.


Please cite as “FVM-89-01-23,” 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 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/89-01-23