7/7/94.
Kindly remind me, dear Mr Potts, about September, to send the root of the W. African Wonder-Grass, Panicum spectabile. It has in the cool weather gone back here, and it would do no good to plant it, while night-frosts might occur. In the first year after planting it should be lightly covered with brush or hay, so as to allow the roots getting strength for perennial growth and spread.
If the enclosed Bamboo-seeds were sown in a warm house or forcing frame, the seedling could be gradually hardened off, and the plants when strong enough, would endure the winters there
Regardfully your
Ferd von Mueller
Your treatise on Sorghum is very interesting1
Mr Hartmann2 is dead since several years. Dr Bancroft sen. died last month,3 a great loss to Austral science.
You shall soon have some seeds of economic plants, they must be sown after the night-frosts have passed.
Do you like to join the Royal Hort. Soc of Engl. as FRHS? I will gladly propose you.4
Panicum spectabile
Sorghum
See (Age (Melbourne), 16 August 1892: 'Mr. H. W. Potts, chemist, of Euroa, has been commissioned to write a paper [on Egyptian brown corn as a summer fodder] for the next issue of the Agricultural Bulletin. This paper was read before the Euroa Fruit Growers Association, from which the following information is taken.' A summary of the talk on some varieties of Sorghum follows. The full treatise has not been found; 'Agricultural Bulletin' is probably the Bulletin issued by Victoria's Department of Agriculture.
Probably the Qld botanical collector Carl Heinrich Hartmann, who died in December 1887.
Joseph Bancroft died on 16 June 1894.
Potts took up M's offer; see M to H. Potts, 3 November 1894.
Please cite as “FVM-94-07-07,” 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