From George Murray1    5 February 1892

BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY),

Cromwell Road,

London: S.W. 2

5 February 1892.

Dear Baron von Mueller

You have been so very kind to us in sending valuable Algae that I venture to ask you to do me a great favour in procuring a few spirit Specimens. A most interesting research on Scaberia Agardhii, Notheia anomala & Hormosira (on which it grows) on Myriodesma and on Xiphophora = Fucodium gladiatus 3 Labill. and on Sarcophycus potatorum is now in progress partly in my own hands & partly in those of a pupil. We have carried the matter so far as our dried material permits and now spirit Specimens are necessary to enable us to solve a problem of the very greatest morphological importance. In our Herbarium we have Sarcophycus from Port Fairy Victoria and Notheia anomala on Hormosira (both needed) also from Port Fairy — as well as from Georgetown Tasmania. Xiphora 4 (Fucodium gladiatus also from several points on the coast of Victoria & Tasmania and Myriodesma from Geelong & Brighton Beach.5 Perhaps Mr Bracebridge Wilson will add to his former kindness to me by helping you in this. We have Scaberia Agardhii collected by yourself in Streaky Bay6 & from others King Georges Sound7 Bass Strait, Adelaide (R. Brown) Tasmania etc.

I know how heartily you encourage research and I trust to your interest in this work and kindness of heart to enable to settle beyond doubt this most absorbing question of the development of the conceptacles of these Algae.

In about two months Messrs Dulau will issue British Museum Phycological Memoirs Part I.8 which I am sure will interest you. May I ask you to make Part II interesting as well!

Yours very truly

George Murray.9

 

Fucodium gladiatus

Hormosira

Myriodesma

Notheia anomala

Sarcophycus potatorum

Scaberia Agardhii

Xiphophora

Xiphora

 
1
MS annotation by M: 'Answ 6/6/92'. Letter not found.
2
MS also bears the embossed insignia of the British Museum (Natural History).
3
Fucodium gladiatum?
4
Xiphophora?
5
Both Vic.
6
SA. M never visited Streaky Bay; the specimen in question must have been collected by someone else and passed on to him.
7
WA.
8
See Dulau & Co. to M, 12 April 1892
9
Murray (1892-5). See also G. Murray to M, 18 November 1892 (in this edition as 92-11-18a).

Please cite as “FVM-92-02-05,” 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 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/92-02-05