5/9/93
You asked me, dear Prof. Lange, in your last kind letter, to send you an other impression of a portrait of mine; but I do not remember, whether you allude to a photogram or a lithogram. Kindly let me know which, and I will gladly fulfil your wish. It is with much sorrow, that I hear of your impaired eyesight; but you have worked so long and so zealously with the microscope, that such sufferings, — distressing though they are —, come not as a surprise. My visual power is not so good now either than 1840, when I commenced to use magnifying lenses extensively.
It was very pleasing to me, that the Todea arrived safely, it was the "last of the Mohikans"1 as far as known.
Always with regardful remembrance your
Ferd. von Mueller
Ihrem Collaboratär Willkomm "glänzen auch wohl die Locken so silberweiss gebleicht von der Fülle der Jahre":2 Ich erinnere sehr wohl in den 40 Jahren des Jahrhunderts wie er das Biarum entdeckte. Grüssen Sie ihn recht freundlichst, wenn Sie ihm schreiben. Auch sein Bild hängt in meiner Studirstube (lithographisches Portrait)
Your collaborator Willkomm, 'the curls probably also shine so silver-white, whitened by the fullness of the years': I remember very well in the 40s of the century, how he discovered the Biarum.3 Most friendly greetings to him if you write to him. His picture also hangs in my study (lithographic portrait)4
Biarum
Todea
See M to J. Lange, 17 April 1893. M refers to J. F. Cooper, The last of the Mohicans (1826). M had previously told Lange that no more specimens of giant Todeas were available; see M to J, Lange, 24 January 1893 (in this edition as 93-01-24a).
Slight misquotation of
Ihm glänzte die Locke silberweiß,
Gebleicht von der Fülle der Jahre.
that is, lines 33 and 34 of Schiller, ‘Der Graf von Habsburg’ (https://www.friedrich-schiller-archiv.de/gedichte-schillers/balladen-schiller/der-graf-von-habsburg/ accessed 24 July 2018).
Willkomm (1847) described a species from Malaga, found during the two years that he spent in the Iberian peninsula; see Devesa Alcaraz & Maria del Carmen (2001), pp. 274, 308.
No image of Willkomm has been identified at MEL, but see M to J. Haast, 29 July 1862 (in this edition as 62-07-29b) and notes thereto.
Please cite as “FVM-93-09-05,” 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