To William Thiselton-Dyer   18 April 1889

18/4/891

 

As mentioned in my last letter,2 dear Mr Dyer, the Gymoschoenus went by the "Ballarat" or rather is loaded into that magnificent ship by the P & O Line, which is to steam off this evening. (Freight paid here).3 For scenic planting these kind of plants should be more chosen from all parts of the world than has hitherto been done.

I gave Mr Bage,4 a partner here in a great merchants firm, a letter to you,5 merely asking, that in his exceptional case you kindly might allow him, to see your grand establishment under the "Cicerone"-ship of one of your Officers. He married a daughter of a rich German Merchant here, of6 Mr Lange,7 the one after whom I named the remarkable Phajus Langei from New Caledonia.8 He died lately; he was one of the few mercantile Patricians here, who spent annually a large sum on his glass-houses and other horticultural concerns. Mrs Bage and her little children have proceeded also on this tour to Europe.

Regardfully

always your

Ferd. von Mueller

 

The Presidency for the Austral. Assoc. early in 1890 commences to weigh on me. The railways will just then be so far ready, that we can take the hundreds of Ladies and Gentlemen to the Glaciers of the Austral alps, first named and ascended by me in 1854 and 1855.

 

Gymnoschoenus

Phajus Langei

 
1
Date stamped: Royal Gardens Kew 27. May. 89. Annotated in red pencil by Thiselton- Dyer: And 22.5.89 (letter not found).
2
M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 17 April 1889.
3
Freight paid here is written in the central margin, f. 274 front, its position in the text indicated by asterisks: the brackets are an editorial addition.
4
Mr Bage underlined in red pencil.
5
Letter not found.
6
of added in central margin before Mr Lange.
7
Frederick C . Lange, partner in Lange and Thonemann, general merchants and Importers, who acted as the Austro-Hungarian Consul in Victoria ( Sands and McDougall’s Melbourne and Suburban Directory , 1884 , p. 331).
8
Name not in IPNI or Muir (1979); Calanthe langei ? The notes to the description in B85.11.03 are consistent with the context in this letter: 'In New Caledonia, from whence it was transmitted … to Fr. Lange, Esq., of Melbourne, in whose splendid garden it bore flowers in August, 1885'.

Please cite as “FVM-89-04-18,” 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 26 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/89-04-18