21/81/90
Let me thank you, dear Prof. Tate, for the list of W.A. plants, indicated from Mr Tietkens' collection.2 You will see from the wish, thus expressed, that I am anxious, to do justice to every one but often I am quite distracted by the urgency and multiplicity of engagements at this large place here with its 400,000 Citizens, not to speak of the endless calls of the rural population on my Departmental services. You are quite right in supposing that some of your former sendings are amiss. I have looked for them repeatedly, but cannot find them. As you have seen, when you were here,3 the accommodation, since I left the garden, is and has been quite inadequate to the most ordinary requirements. Where a place is overcrowded with articles, it is impossible to keep order. Consider also, that the collections comprise about ¾ millions sheets, so that readily something may be mislaid. Unfortunately in the case now also of Micrantheum I have only 3 specimens, all from Tepper, and the print is now done, I fear, to add your name. I did not remember, that I had the plant from you. Surely you will give me credit, that I would not omit willingly the name of any collector. Even the Garden-man here,4 after he behaved so ill to me, got credit for his ferns &c in the Flora5 after 1872 from my collections. I am now pressed for bringing out the 10th part of the "Papuan plants",6 and as I am not strong, like you, and much older too, it will be a charity to me, not to be exacting; but I will try to find the Barbarea and Stenopetalum, laid aside, as I have as yet not done anything critical with them. When I get a little leisure, I will search also for your other plants, but likely it cannot be til 1891, if I live so long. I presume, you have J. Hookers Flora Tasmanicae,7 so that you have been able, to identify the Schoenus sphaerocephalus. Kindly say so, or I will send you a specimen of Gymnoschoenus from here. Its occurrence so far W. is interesting. Where it grows in Sphagnum, other Tasm plants should occur. In the Census I have no space for remarks, only for simple enumerations and quotations. My printing fund run so short, that I could not even print a preface or introductory remark again, altho' I had the manuscript notes for an extended preface ready.
Regardfully always your
Ferd. von Mueller
I thank you for the prints,8 from which now I can quote
Even in Kew notwithstanding the large Staff, specimens get sometimes mislaid.
Your name can still be mentioned with the Micrantheum in the Naturalist but not on the slips9
How many stamens are on your Micrantheum
Barbarea
Gymnoschoenus
Micrantheum
Schoenus sphaerocephalus
Sphagnum
Stenopetalum
8 over 9.
See M to R. Tate, 30 July 1890 (in this edition as 90-07-30a).
Tate visited Melbourne in January 1890, to attend the Second Congress of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science.
William Guilfoyle.
Bentham (1863-78).
A galley proof of part of the intended part exists at MEL, but the text was never completed; see B92.11.02, where M comments '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'.
J. Hooker (1860).
Not identified.
M's description of Micrantheum demissum, published in the September 1890 issue of the Victorian naturalist (B90.09.02) credits both Tate and Tepper as collectors. See above.
Please cite as “FVM-90-08-21,” 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