[Baron von Mueller desires to acknowledge through the Press the receipt of various specimens of Western Australian plantlets, and expresses his gratitude for the ready response to the appeal that appeared in the West Australian. He would like it to be publicly known that in order to facilitate and assist him in the preparation of his "Census of Australasian plants for 1897,"1 the Western Australian Government have kindly consented to convey all specimens post free.2 Those interested will remember that the list closes in November, 3 and the Baron is anxious to have the catalogue completed. Mr. E. J. Bickford, of the Wesley Literary Society, will supply suitable envelopes for transmission.]4
The volume was not published. Previous editions (B83.03.04, B89.12.03) included only Australian plants.
Letter not found.
See M to a correspondent in Western Australia, 21 July 1896 (in this edition as 96-07-21a), and M to E. Bickford, 23 August 1896. Neither of these letters, nor the newspaper commentary on them, mentions ’November’ as the time by which M planned to close the census, and a search of digitised West Australian newspapers for 1896 failed to find an appeal that did.
The article continues with an appeal on behalf of 'Mr. C. French, Government Entomologist pf Victoria' (i.e. Charles French Snr) for those interested in collecting insects to correspond with him.
Letter not found. The text given here is from 'Native flora of Western Australia', West Australian, 3 October 1896, p. 5. M's letter is dated to September as the last date that a letter could be sent from Melbourne to be reported on 3 October. The same item was printed as 'Botanical specimens', Morning herald (Perth), 3 October 1896, p. 8, with 'in the WEST AUSTRALIAN' replaced by 'in The Morning Herald', a newly established competing title. It is less likely that M wrote directly to each newspaper than that the information was sent to them by a private correspondent, perhaps Ernest Bickford, as is the case with M to E. Bickford, 23 August 1896, where Bickford is also reported to have envelopes suitable for forwarding specimens. M wrote similar appeals to other private correspondents, for example M to J. Read, 14 September 1889 (in this edition as 89-09-14a), M to A. Molineux, 2 February 1895, and M to C. Ryan, 2 February 1896 (in this edition as 96-02-02a).
Please cite as “FVM-96-09-00e,” 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