July 6th [189]51
Dear Baron
As I never hear from you I suppose that your time is all taken up. I am obliged to you for the orchid pamphlet but must say that all such publications should be published in the colonies. The Australian workers are too much kept in the dark with regard to the plants of New Guinea.2 I should have been better pleased ha[d] [y]ou3 published in some such form as my botany bulletins all your work upon the plants of New Guinea, you will see as being the nearest government botanist to this new colony how necessary it is for me to possess all that is or has been published upon its flora, but the work at present is so scattered that I cannot [even] purchase it,4 and I receive but few specimens of those collected at public expense.
I have lately received a specimen of what may be your Eriostemon Nottii could you oblige me with a typical specimen of that species,5 as I have not even the Fragmenta with the diagnosis6 — I see a notice in our papers of your birthday let me wish you many happy returns of the day —
Your old friend
F. Manson Bailey
Eriostemon Nottii
editorial addition.
Bailey is referring to a reprint containing papers by Kränzlin that included many species authored jointly by him and M from the part of New Guinea administered by Queensland, as well as species collected from the German colonies that were authored by Kränzlin alone; this is confirmed by a letter from Wilhelm Bäuerlen to Joseph Maiden, 2 July 1895 (MRS 203/4, Inwards correspondence — special bundles, 1886-1921, 95/681 Archives of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney) in which Bäuerlen reports receiving a copy of the reprint from M and mentions species collected by him that are included in the papers, at least one in Kränzlin (1894) and another in Kränzlin (1895).
editorial addition — MS damaged.
Bailey made similar complaints to the botanists at Kew, suggesting that W. Thiselton-Dyer could help by 'advising that in all instances … in which plants are described by distant botanists, that a copy of such descriptions be sent at the earliest opportunity to the government botanists of the country or colony to which that plant belongs' (F. Bailey to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 29 April 1892, quoted by Clements (1999), p. 195).
A specimen, BRI 042581, in the Queensland Herbarium bearing M's Phytologic Museum of Melbourne label has no date of acquisition or collection.
B67.09.01, p. 22.
Please cite as “FVM-95-07-06,” 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