6/8/91.
In one of your valuable Bulletins, dear Prof. Hilgard, you speak of Medicago turbinata as a plant, which has proved valuable on pastures there. I have here for many years distributed the seeds (fruits) of M. scutellata & M. orbicularis, because both are always free of any spinules on their fruits, in which respect M. denticulata is here such a wool-deteriorating plant. Now I have added to these two harmless species for the pastures here M. tuberculata, the fruits of which are only asperous. But M. turbinata is apt to produce spinules, and even if seed was taken from the variety without spinules, the plant may not remain free of them in time. Perhaps you have really M. tuberculata. I should like to see some fruits of your plant. I found out, that it must be Quercus densiflora which furnishes the principal tan-bark in California Can you kindly contribute some brief notes for the new edition of the select plants,1 as from your local experience there several additions must have suggested themselves, while you used that work.
Regardfully your
Ferd von Mueller
I have several citations from your Bulletins for the new edition2
Medicago denticulata
Medicago orbicularis
Medicago scutellata
Medicago tuberculata
Medicago turbinata
Quercus densiflora
The next edition of Select plants was B91.09.01, but as that was published by September 1891 (see Victorian naturalist, vol. 8 (1891), p. 85), M must have already been planning the subsequent edition, B95.08.04.
Hilgard was cited a number of times in B91.09.01 and slightly more frequently in B95.08.04; he had been cited only infrequently in the preceding edition, B88.12.01.
Please cite as “FVM-91-08-06a,” 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