To William Thiselton-Dyer   15 May 1893

15/5/93.1

 
 

By this mail, dear Dr Dyer, I send a fungus, which during the last 46 years of my Australian observations I have never yet seen, so far as I remember. I hope, Dr Cooke2 will grant the little reward to the discoverer, Mr Reader,3 to have his name attached to it, if this fungus should prove new. But now a days, when 30000 sp are described for Mycology not to speak of many more synonyms, it is only wasting time of those who cannot give up all their time to mycology, attempting to name fungs except the more common kinds.

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

The fructifying summit with its sporidia reminds of the theca of [a Sphagnum]4

The discovery of Fagus Moorei by an Amateur not far from Moreton Bay within Queensland territory proves, how imperfectly the large and now easily traversable area there is explored for plants. The Gov Botanist of QL. should first elaborate a full Flora of his own extensive province, and make himself personally acquainted with each of its districts, before attempting to write a supplement to Bentham’s 7 volumes, for which I have vast materials since 1864, while he has no personal experiences outside of QL. anywhere in Australia, nor material (and little authenticated)5 of any appreciable extent from the other colonies, so that he would have to take out of my Fragmenta and other works of mine the additions and that without permission of his preceptor who led him to Austral Botany6

No similar trespass is known as attempted in our Science, before.7

I shall accept for convenience sake for my suppl. the sequence of Benth[s] flora for my supplement.8 altho not even in B & H genera9 always adhered to.10

Why does Cordyceps Taylori not occur in Dr Cooke’s [Austr] Fungus-Flora?11 Though even on the cover of his “plant-worms”12

 

Cordyceps Taylori

Fagus Moorei

Sphagnum

1
Annotated in black ink by John Baker:Seen by Massee | JGB 22/6/93 and in pencil by Thiselton-Dyer:And 22/6/93 [letter not found].
2
John Baker wroteretired in black ink in the margin next toDr Cooke, which is underlined in the same ink.
3
Probably Felix Reader.
4
Obscured by binding strip.
5
and little authenticated is written in the left margin on the back of the MS folio, its position in the text indicated by asterisks. Parentheses added editorially for clarity.
6
See Clements (1998) for the reaction by M to F. Bailey’s proposal to write a supplement to Bentham’s Flora Australiensis.
7
No similar trespass ... before is written in the central margin on the front of the folio.
8
I shall accept ... for my supplement is written in the central margin on the back of the folio .
9
Bentham & Hooker (1862–83).
10
altho not even in B & H genera always adhered to is written in the right margin on the back of the folio.
11
Cooke (1892).
12
The figure of Cordyceps taylori on p. 159 of Cooke (1892b) is also used on the embossed cover.

Please cite as “FVM-93-05-15,” 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 20 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/93-05-15