3/5/90.1
In shipping for you, dear Mr Dyer, the two Zamia Dyeri,2 I found, that one was slightly rotten at the bottom of the stem. The decayed portion has been carefully removed, but it would be well, to examine the plant again carefully before it is put in soil, as it may need the charcoal-treatment.3 I presume you were and continued successful with the Macrozamia Moorei, after you submitted it to amputation.4 Write occasionally a note, how seeds and plants from here succeed, as it cheers me much,5 and as now and them a memorandum about this might be given to you by a foreman, without loss of time. Thus I do not know now, whether you have or have not the Telopea oreades growing.6 So I send seeds once more. If you have the two plants finally flowering alongside each other, you will see that T. oreades differs specifically from T. truncata;7 so the error in gen. pl. that only two Telopeas can be admitted should be corrected. 8 I am just passing the 9th part9 of the Papuan plants through the press, and the 10th will soon follow;10 indeed I trust to get through the whole of Forbes and Baeuerlens plants in the course of this year.11
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.
Can we hope for an early suppl. of the genera plantarum? Some one might be tempted to compile one from existing literature; this grand work leaves us now occasionally helpless, particularly the earlier volumes.
If you have already safely growing the first sent Macrozamia Dyeri,12 will you then put one of the present lot into your next case for Regel, as he seems to have the largest collection of Cycadeae beyond Kew.
13/5/90.
Only one case is for you,13 the two others are for the continent, but as they have all been put on one bill of lading, you will get yours through Mess. Watson & Scull.
Cycadeae
Macrozamia Dyeri
Macrozamia Moorei
Telopea oreades
Telopea truncata
Zamia Dyeri
The date on the postscript shows that the letter was not sent immediately.
Name not found published (APNI, accessed 8 November 2020); Encephalartos dyeri? See M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 18 October 1881 (in this edition as 81-10-18a), n. 2.
Marginal annotation by W. Watson: done.
Marginal annotation by W. Watson: Yes.
See 'Tenacity of life in a Cycad', Gardeners' chronicle, 9 February 1889, p. 177, which reports that a stem received on 1 June 1882 (See M to w. Thiselton-Dyer, 8 May 1882 (in this edition as 82-05-08a)) was restored to growth after being taken from its pot and the dead bottom section removed.
Interlined annotation by W. Watson: As a rule will.
Interlined annotation by W. Watson: Small plant from his seeds.
Marginal annotation by W. Watson: We have this too; and presumably by Watson: Truncata.
Bentham & J. Hooker (1862-83), vol. 3, p. 184; however, Bentham (1863-78), vol.. 5, p. 534 lists three species.
B90.05.01.
The 10th part was apparently never issued, although galley proofs exist in the library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. In the introduction to B92.11.02, M wrote 'already towards the end of last year I described for the tenth part of the Papuan Plants several remarkable novelties, but as more urgent direct official obligations caused the completion of the mentioned publication to be postponed it is deemed desirable to offer preliminary succinct notes in the Victorian Naturalist, on some of the new plants elucidated'.
M was working up the dicoytledenous plants collected by Henry Forbes in on his expedition sponsored by British institutions with a further grant from the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, along with all those collected by Wilhelm Bäuerlen on the Society's own expedtion led by Henry Everill to the Fly River on the Bonito.
This name was not published until 1930, as a recombination by transferring the species from Encephalartos: see APNI (accessed 8 November 2020).
Interlined annotation by W. Watson: only one recd.
MS black-edged; M's brother-in-law George Doughty died on 26 March 1890.
Date stamped Royal Gardens Kew 18. Jun. 90. Annotated by Thiselton-Dyer: And 13.7.90 (letter not found).
Please cite as “FVM-90-05-03,” 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