[Herbs.—John Farrell.—As regards the two herbs from Mount Mercer, they are both unwholesome, Baron von Mueller says, and stock seem not to like them, particularly the one marked A, Centipeda peduncularis,1 which, on account of its sternntatorian2 properties, is called the sneeze-weed. The name of the other is Hydrocotyle hirta. If pasture animals fed anywhere largely on them, perhaps on ground overstocked or without any proper pasturage at all, these weeds would in all probability prove very hurtful. Where they grow, always in humid soil, white clover and many other kinds of really valuable and permanent fodder plants could be readily disseminated. In the same way many of the nutritive meadow grasses of Britain could be grown in the localities where the centipeda and hydrocotyle thrive, and this measure would suppress largely these two noxious weeds and prevent their reappearance, improving besides the carrying capabilities of the land. If any doubt should still exist about the cause of loss among sheep there, then it would be desirable to summon a veterinary surgeon to the spot, so as to make quite sure whether the mischief arose really from unwholesome food.]
Centipeda peduncularis
Hydrocotyle hirta
Name in neither APNI nor IPNI; M's error for 'C. orbicularis', which was commonly called 'sneeze-weed'?
Typesetter's error for sternutatorian?; 'sternutatatorian' is an M neologism used elsewhere, for example in B89.03.04, derived from 'sternutation'.
Letter not found. The text given here is from 'The Yeoman. Answers to correspondents', Australasian (Melbourne), 17 February 1894, p. 273. Assuming that the reply would be published in the next available issue in this weekly newspaper, it is dated to 9 February 1894 as the likely earliest date it would have been sent.
Please cite as “FVM-94-02-09a,” 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