From Ferdinand von Mueller to Alexander Crawford   18 June 1894

18/6/94.

It is very kind of you, dear Mr Crawford, to promise sending me Resins Kinos and Gums from your tract of country. They will be all the more valuable, as I can depend on the ½ lb, within which samples are received for the ordinary post. Will you allow me to refund you postage and other expenses, particularly if you should be inclined, when large quantities of material be at hand, to send more than one ½ lb parcel of any sort. But what can I send you in return?

Is the specific name of your Xanthorrhoea there known? I am so pleased, that you follow up the search-subject of the yellow Raspberry-like fung on the Fagus.¹ I would be sorry, if in elucidating this subject, after initiating it myself I was forestalled in it.² Some hesitation I feel in writing to the forest-officer direct, as he is an official of N.S.W. To me it seems additionally advisable to find out a splitters or sawyers family in the true Beech (not Gmelina-) forests, whose children after the promise of a reward would be vigilant for this fung, which likely is obtainable all throughout the year as dropping from the branches of the Fagus but — as I know from Victorian experience — is easiest found or seen dropped onto the ground in summer.

Is your Lyrebird the Menura superba or the smaller M. Alberti? At your elevation no-one has ever yet (as far as I am aware) collected fungs.

Of course I never wished that you should spend your valuable time on any investigations for me, unless as a kind of recreative work in your very vicinity.

I will write to Mr Childs and send him some seeds, so that he is sure to send me his catalogue, to which you kindly direct my attention.³

The Bamboo-seeds, now sent you, ought to germinate as they are fresh and well formed. It would be well to raise them on a hot-bed or to give them to some one who has a warm glass house

With gratitude and friendship

your

Ferd. von Mueller

Fagus

Gmelina

Xanthorrhoea