From Ferdinand von Mueller to Thomas Meehan   [Jan 1895]

[As these lines were being penned there came to hand from our obliging friend, Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, of Melbourne, Australia, another species of this curious genus of fungi—Cordyceps Berkeleyi1—if the memory of a misplaced label does not deceive the writer—growing from another species of caterpillar of that region. In this case the fungus takes the form of the antlers of a deer.]

Cordyceps Berkeleyi

Cordyceps Berkeleyi not found in fungi name indexes. Meehan's accompanying illustration very much resembles the form of C. taylori, illustrated on p. 159 of Cooke (1892b); J. Willis (1959), p. 83 treats C. henleyae as a synonym of C. taylori, and it is possible that M sent a specimen received from Maria Henley (see M to M. Henley, 31 May 1895). However, the illustration given by Meehan is not similar in proportions to the type specimen of C. henleyae given in Lloyd (1915), p. 9, fig. 622.

Letter not found. The text given here is from 'Caterpillar funguses and mimicry', Meehan's monthly, March 1895, p. 45. The letter is dated to January 1895 as the latest likely date that it could have been sent to have been reported in this issue.

Please cite as “FVM-95-01-00d,” 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 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/95-01-00d