20/4/94.
On the next page, dear Mr Macdonald, you will find the copied dedication of a new plant of mine,1 in connection with the "Sandfly". It was — I think — about 1880 when the catastrophe happened at the Solomon-Islands. By a memory error I thought it was in N. Guinea, where the disaster occurred.2
Regardfully your
Ferd von Mueller
Mr Arthur King could give you all the information about that voyage.3
Handwritten copy of M's dedication of Cymbidium Boweri, named in honour of Lieut. Bower, RN, commanding officer of HMS Sandfly, killed by natives in the Solomon Islands in 1880, and published in B83.08.03.
Macdonald evidently sent this to the Australasian. In 'The Sandfly Massacre', Australasian (Melbourne), 28 April 1894, p. 728, the newspaper reported that 'A correspondent lately asked the date of the Sandfly massacre at the Solomon Islands. With the assistance of Mr. A. C. Macdonald and Baron von Mueller we have since found that it happened in October 1880. … The memo, from Baron von Mueller, enabling us to discover the precise date, is an extract from the Southern Science Record, describing an orchid which was brought from Florida Island in 1881 by Lieutenant Goldflach, of H.M.S. Emerald.'
New Guinea given in M to A. Macdonald, 11 April 1894.
See A. King to M, 27 December 1883, and notes thereto.
MS annotation by A. C. Macdonald: 'Please return this note to A. C. Macdonald 70 Queen St'.
Please cite as “FVM-94-04-20,” 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