June 12 /96.
The Camp.
Sunningdale.
My dear Baron
I have just opened & read yours of 7th ult.1 & am much gratified by your notice of the of Fl. Brit. Ind.2 I wish that I could look at it with even equaminity, much more with satisfaction, but the further I go on the more convinced I feel that the work is only an introduction to the study of Indian Grasses, & that future observations may much modify my conclusions. Then too there are a plentiful crop of blunders, & omissions which turn up in the most unexpected places. —
Thus in the Clavis of genera several genera are absent, — of obscure things that lurked in out of the way corners of the Herbarium, or of plants which on a 3d revision demanded generic rank. — 66 Phippsia must go into Catabrosa with Colpodium (& Dupontia) & go next to Poa. Phragmites Madagascariensis must form a new genus, Neyraudia.
The characters of 104, 105, 106 have got mixed by the printer (I suppose.) I have just sent Poa, Festuca & Bromus to press — I gave them all to Stapf to discriminate & diagnose, as he knows European & Oriental Grasses much better than I do. — He has also done Eragrostis, a very difficult task. Then as the Bambuseae are all worked up by Gamble,3 & it would be folly to interfere with his work, I have only to extract his matter & put it in the form of the other genera & sp. of Brit. India & give him the credit of it all.
Banks' Journal is nearly free of the Press; a copy shall of course go to you at once.4 It cost more labor to conclude properly than I anticipated & I have been powerfully aided by my 4th son Reginald, who is an officer in the Board of Agriculture & of a literary & mathematical turn. I hope the work will take in Australia; and give the world a higher idea of Banks than it had. There should be a monument to him in Australia.5
The idea of giving you a musical salutation on your birthday (& mine!) charms me.6 I did not know that we were co-natal as to day & month or I would have thought especially of you; & all the more as I had a Musical Jubilee too! my youngest boy Richard, atet7 12, having composed a very pretty piece for me — he is almost a musical genius & delightful on the Violin, full of feeling & expression.
At last Mrs Brian has gone [out] to her husband with the children: he has just built a house for them at Coolgardie Kanowna, where he has charge of a Mine with £700 & liberty to look after others — I [now] think of all your kindness to his poor wife in her distress with most grateful feelings.
Ever my dear Baron
most sincerely yr
Jos D Hooker
Bambuseae
Bromus
Catabrosa
Colpodium
Dupontia
Eragrostis
Festuca
Neyraudia
Phippsia
Phragmites Madagascariensis
Poa
Letter not found.
J. Hooker (1875-97), vol. 7; pages 1-224, containing the first part of the Gramineae, were issued in April 1896 (TL2). The notice by M has not been found.
Gamble (1896). The way in which Hooker amended the material to fit his structure is explained in the introduction to the Bambuseae in Hooker (1875-97), vol. 7, p. 375; Gamble's contribution, Gamble (1896a), was included in the part issued in early December 1896 (TL2), and was based on an advance copy of the journal.
Banks (1896).
See also J. Hooker to M, 2 March 1896.
M appears to have mentioned to Hooker in his missing letter of 7 May 1896 that a musical event was planned for his birthday: it was given by the Possum's Musical Society on 30 June 1896 (Prahran chronicle, 4 July 1896, p. 3).
aetat [= aged]? Richard Symonds Hooker was in his 12th year, having been born on 10 January 1885 (Allan (1967)).
Please cite as “FVM-96-06-12,” 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