19/12/93
The fungus, N 18 just received, dear Mr. Williamson is the nutritive excrescence of the Polyporus mylittae, but this white hard mushroom is rarely developed from the nutritive mass. The latter passed formerly as a distinct fungus under the name of Mylitta australis. Should any farmers plough up the Mylitta masses, will you kindly ask them to preserve them for me, also any white mushroom, growing out of it.1 Such material aids me in my foreign interchanges. I will send seeds of valuable economic plants in reciprocity
I suppose you will be out after your Grevillea2 during the holidays
[...]3
Grevillea
Polyporus mylittae
See M to H. Williamson, December 1893 (in this edition as 93-12-00) and M to H. Williamson, December 1893 (in this edition as 93-12-00f).
See M to H. Williamson, October 1893 (in this edition as 93-10-00a) and M to H. Williamson, November 1893 (in this edition as 93-11-00k).
MS cut off, with the bottom of the page missing. Since the text does not continue on the verso, perhaps only the valediction is lacking. The file includes a fragment in M's hand, evidently cut off from a letter, reading 'With best Christmas & new years felicitation from | Ferd. von Mueller' that would be an appropriate valediction for the present letter. However, the paper on which this is written is wider than that of the letter and so it would appear that it came from a different letter, probably one, not found, that was written late in 1894 or late in 1895.
The file includes several other fragments bearing M's valediction and signature that have been cut off from letters and that cannot be matched with letters now included in the file. Two have nothing other than the valediction; one adds 'Are sheep fond of Plagianthus spicatus', while another asks 'Will gladly propose you FRHS [Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society], if you desire it; it does not cost much annually'. No evidence has been found that Williamson became FRHS.
MS black-edged; M's nephew George Doughty died on 19 November 1893.
Please cite as “FVM-93-12-19a,” 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