To Isaac Burkill   19 September 1893

19/9/93.

 

In reply to your letter just received, dear Mr Burkill, let me say, that only a small number of the plants, brought by Baron A. von Huegel1 from the South-Sea Islands, remained here, and I only had occasion to refer to the Baea Commerconi (in honor of a Frenchman not a Scandinavian).2 It did not appear to me, that the collection contained any important novelties, and by a series of heavy extra-engagements in the Department here, lasting through several years, I was unable to follow up this intended research and indeed much other, altho' the prospect is good for resuming various investigations on polynesian plants. But let me not in any way hinder you, to elaborate Baron Huegel's c[o...]3

If I rightly remember I named on hurried inspection some of the species in his set. Please give my greeting to the young Nobleman, and remember me also kindly to the Nestor of British Botanists.4 If you meet some Scandinavian botanic authority, ask him to make a tour to a likely place (likely as to his experience) for Bassia hirsuta, which undoubtedly could be found in Britain, altho the glabrous form resembles closely Suaeda maritima (the top is often spirally twisted, and a vestige of hairlets to be found on the leaf-axils).5 I predicted also the British occurence of Juncus pygmaeus many years before it was found, and from my Danish field-experience in the fourth[l]ier years of this century I should also think, that Scirpus radicans, Juncus Tenageia and some other continental plants could yet be found in your island[s.]6

Regardfull[y

your

Ferd. von Mueller]7

 

Boea Commerconi

Bassia hirsuta

Suaeda maritima

Juncus pygmaeus

Scirpus radicans

Juncus Tenageia

Anatole von Hügel (1854-1928), younger son of the botanical explorer Karl von Hügel, visited the South Pacific, 1874-80, including three years in Fiji during which time he assembled a vast collection of ethnographic and other material.

Boea commersonii ?

In honor of a Frenchman not a Scandinavian is a marginal note on the front of the folio, its position in the text indicated by asterisks. The parentheses are an editorial addition.

See M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 10 September 1881, for a more extended comment on Commerçon / Commerson. Horsfield, Bennett & Brown (1838-52), p. 120, cite the author of Boea as Commerson.

Page damaged. Burkill (1898), p. 96, tendered his sincere thanks 'to the members of staff of the Kew Herbarium, to Mr. C. B. Clarke and to Baron Sir Ferdinand von Mueller for the considerable assistance which they have given me'.
Joseph Hooker.

the top is often spirally twisted ... leaf-axils is a marginal note on the back of the folio, its position in the text indicated by asterisks. The parentheses are an editorial addition.

See M to J. Hooker, 11 August 1870 (in this edition as 70-08-11b). Juncus pygmaeus was included in Hooker (1878a), p. 416, but not in the first edition of 1870.

Obscured by binding strip.
editorial addition — The bottom of the folio has been damaged.

Please cite as “FVM-93-09-19,” 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 28 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/93-09-19