From Ferdinand von Mueller to Jessie Hussey   [1893]

No specimen in MEL with the record numbers 2 – 36 in the list of specimens collected by Hussey corresponds to this list. There is no specimen in MEL with Hussey's collection no. 1. Evidence from this and other plant lists demonstrates that the specimens Hussey sent to M were not numbered in one continuous sequence. Nine of the species (as named by M or as a synonym for an indexed name) are not recorded in MEL However, twenty species listed here match M's name or are synonyms of species in MEL without record numbers and dated 1893 (AVH, accessed 4 August 2024; APC, accessed 6 August 2024).

M may have returned to Hussey numbered specimens of the first set of terrestrial tracheophytes received from her and kept some samples of them, without recording the numbers given to them. When soliciting collections, M requested donors to prepare duplicate numbered sets (e.g. M to W. Guilfoyle, 20 March 1859; M to Australian newspapers, April 1876 (in this edition as 76-04-00)), but not all new correspondents did this. For example, when responding to a collection of four parcels of plants he wrote 'But in future your best plan will be, to collect all kinds of plants doubly, to number the two sets correspondingly, and to keep one set there, while one is sent to my Department, where I like to keep the specimens for records of localities with the original labels or writings of the finder permanently' (M to C. Mussson, 27 January 1890). There are few covering letters to the determination lists sent to Hussey and the failure to find similar advice to her does not negate the possibility.

MEL holds two specimens of this species collected by Hussey but without record numbers, under Lomandra juncea of which X. juncea is a synonym; one is dated 1893 (MEL 0020634), and the other July 1894 (MEL 0020633).

W. gracilis?

MEL holds an un-numbered specimen of this species collected by Hussey, but without a collector's number, which is dated '1893' (MEL 2203655).

Item is a typescript, transcriber unknown, prepared ca. 1977 from an original MS in the State Library of South Australia, Adelaide.

Hussey's collector relationship with M began with algae. She had forwarded 'a beautiful collection of the algae of Port Elliot' by March 1893 (M to Central Bureau of Agriculture, South Australia, March 1893, in this edition as 93-03-00d), and Jacob Agardh had earlier been told to expect 'a probably important collection of algae from Encounter Bay' (M to J. Agardh, 15 February 1893). The earliest dated letter dealing with vascular plants is M to J. Hussey, 19 November 1893; it mentions Logania crassifolia, a specimen of which is included in another list dealing with record numbers 89-162, which apparently had just arrived. Although Kraehenbuehl (1981a), p. 392, when quoting the last two sentences, dates this letter to 'c. 1894', the evidence of un-numbered MEL specimens being dated 1893 (see below) suggests early 1893 is the most plausible date. The present list evidently dealt with the earliest set of vascular plants sent in 1893 but can be dated no more precisely.