Botanic Garden
Adelaide, August 16 1869
G Bentham Esqr.
Dear Sir
It is nearly thirty years since that I had the pleasure of being introduced to you by my late brother Sir Robert just as we were starting on the British Guiana1 Boundary expedition to which I was attached by the Prussian government as naturalist.2
In 1865 I was appointed director of the Botanic Garden Adelaide South Australia. You will have heard that a part of the North coast is ceded to South Australia3 and that the government sent several Expeditions there for investigating etc. this part of our colony.
In former occasions my applications to the Government to attach to these Expeditions a naturalist was of no avail, but I am glad to say, I have succeeded at last and an energetic naturalist a Mr Schultz4 was appointed to Mr Goyders Expedition which left Adelaide last January for Port Darwin
By favour of Dr. Hooker you will receive a collection of 250 spec. dried plants collected at Port Darwin, the first fruits of our able naturalist which you will accept as a present for your Herbarium from our Government.5 There were about 40 spec. of plants of which only one specimen was received and these I have forwarded to doctor Hooker from whom you will receive them. I would have sent these unique specimens to Dr. Mueller Melbourne, but on account of his excentrick behaviour towards me I deemed it better to send the uniques to you.6 Should amongst these be new species I should be obliged by you sending me the names marked with the same number as attached to the plant. Please be so kind as not mention any thing to Dr. Mueller about these uniques.
I adopted the same Botanical-Note-Book as I used during my travels in Guiana.
As soon as the next collection arrives from Mr Schultz I will forward them to you
Believe me
yours very truly
R. Schomburgh Dr. Phil
Director
Now Guyana.
To collect for the Royal Prussian Museum and the Botanical Gardens at Berlin (Payne (1992), p. 128).
i.e. what became known as the Northern Territory.
F. Schultze.
Bentham had no herbarium of his own at this period, having donated his private collection to Kew in 1854. Bentham made use of the specimens collected by Schultze in relevant volumes of Bentham (1863-78) published from 1870 onwards. Most If not all Schultze specimens at Kew carry either a printed label saying "PORT DARWIN NORTH AUSTRALIA. | From R. Schomburgk Oct 1869" or a handwritten one with text similar to that from specimen 749: "Port Darwin | Coll Schultz | Com. R. Schomburgk | 6/1870".
M requested and was sent by Schomburgk a set of Schultz's specimens (see M to R. Schomburgk, 8 August 1869), but, as this letter reveals, his request that he be lent the uniques was not met.
Please cite as “FVM-M69-08-16,” 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