From Joseph Hooker to James Hector   28 May 1867

May 28/ 67.

Dear Hector

Thanks for your note & the interesting slips. Haast had told me of your dislocated shoulder - I am very pleased that Haast always speaks so warmly of you. I had always dreaded jealousy on his part, not unnatural under the circumstances: — & that "puir body" Mueller, in Victoria, is so devoured of vanity and jealousy of Colonial notoriety that I feared his N.Z. countryman might be rather touchy at least. But Haast seems to be a really good fellow & I am delighted that he is FR.S. the very year after you. Mueller is a most extraordinary man is1 will & luck are indomitable but he has blasted his reputation by insatiable greed of glory & hasty descriptions (bad & worse) of endless plants all to catch the priority of nomenclature. He & I always get on well, & all the better from my always giving him my mind, but really it is deplorable to see a man of worth, talent & astonishing perseverance absolutely feeding on his own reputation; he is now dying for a knighthood, which I have urged all in my little power, & hope he may get it;2 but I feel humiliated as a scientific man in having to represent another as coveting such a bauble. I see Haast sports a foreign title, & have dropped him a delicate hint, a propos of Mueller.3

I am writing to Mr Dickens a propos of his Pterostylis, which I cannot make out without specimens. I fear there are some bad species in that genus already & it would not do to found a new one on a drawing! of one specimen.

I have done little but write letters for months & go to Paris where I go again on Saturday.

So no more at present from your ever [...]

Jos D Hooker

 

I announced the boxes by last mail, the plants are now potted off & looking remarkably well. I wish you could get a lot of seed of Thuja Doniana & plant it in the Earth of a Wards case.

I cannot for the life of me make out on what you & Buchanan found your distinctions between Cord. 4 indivisa of Dusky Bay & N. Island. Buchanans valuable papers on Mt Egmont (what a sell that Mt is) & Marlborough I will send to Linnaean.5

 

Cordyline indivisa

Pterostylis

Thuja Doniana

 
1
his?
2
For Hooker's role in lobbying for honours for M, see Lucas (2013a), pp 19, 26.
3
J. Hooker to J. Haast, 19 April 1867 (in this edition as M67-04-19).
4
Cordyline.
5
Buchanan (1867a), (1867b).

Please cite as “FVM-M67-05-28,” 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 19 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/M67-05-28