From Charles Moore to Joseph Hooker   25 February 1876

Botanic Gardens

Sydney 25 Feby 1876

 

Dear Dr Hooker

By the "St Osythe" steamer which takes this,1 I have shipped for you a case containing the plants named in the enclosed list. As you will observe these are for the most part unnamed species from the islands of the Western Pacific, some of which may prove to be new and acceptable to you. Among the most interesting of these is a fern attached to a singular plant both quite new to me, and a donation to you from Lady Robinson the wife of our Governor2 & I should be glad if you will name both plants and acknowledge the receipt of them to Lady Robinson. A Mr Ludham a passenger by the ship from New Zealand has promised to take care of the Case while on board. I sent by the last mail a few specimens of recently collected timber trees which we have sent to the Philadelphia Exhibition.3 These are different from any hitherto [collected], with perhaps one or two exceptions, and will prove valuable additions to our timber collection at Kew after the Exhibition is over. I sent the specimens to Mr Bentham direct, as Muellers unaccountable conduct to me of late, renders it quite impossible for me to send specimens through him for the future. When referring to any of my plants in his Fragmenta, he mentions one of my assistants, Carrons name instead of my own. 4 This is done to annoy me because he thinks I did not sufficiently support him in his efforts to retain the Directorship of the Melbourne Garden,5 a matter in which I had no more [power than …]6 has— on this point however he is a perfect Maniac.7

We are experiencing a very lengthened and severe drought, and our outdoor plants are suffering terribly in consequence. Should the drought continue much longer it will be most serious to the Colony.

Faithfully Your

Charles Moore8

 

Freight paid here. Bill of Lading sent to Silberrad 5 Harp Lane9

 

Dr Hooker C.B. P.R.S.

The mails per St. Osythefor Melbourne, Cape of Good Hope and London closed at 6 pm on 25 February 1876 (Sydney morning herald, 24 February 1876, p. 4).
Sir Hercules Robinson.
Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, 1876.
Moore's displeasure with M's conduct is also reported in C. Moore to G. Bentham, 19 February 1876, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Archives, Bentham Correspondence, vol. 7, f. 2862. The relevant portion of that letter was printed in Australian Systematic Botany Society newsletter, no. 59, June 1989, p. 18, but the date of the letter given there is a misreading. In the letter to Bentham, Moore asserts that M 'adopted the unjustifiable course of giving in recent numbers of his Fragmenta, the credit to Carron one of my employees of having discovered the plants collected by myself, and in localities where he never was e.g. the Bellinger River'. In B75.12.01, p. 171, M erected Carronia(C. multiepalea), listing the specimens used as 'Ad fluvium Bellingeri, Carron; ad originem fluminis Clarence-River, Wilcox'. Specimens MEL 42197, MEL 42199, MEL 42200 are listed as syntypes, said to have been collected by W. Carron, but no dates are given and the labels are in Moore’s hand; MEL 42197 also has M’s herbarium label on which M identifies Carron as collector. There is a syntype of Cupaniopsis foveolata (MEL 108616) where the label is again in Moore’s handwriting but where M credits it to Carron as collector among the specimens used when describing the species: 'Ad Nulla-Nulla prope origenem fluminis McLeay's River, nec non ad flumen Bellenger's River, Carron' (B75.07.01, p. 95). Carron's obituary supports Moore's clams that Carron was not with him on the Bellinger River (Sydney mail and NSW advertiser, 11 March 1876, p. 348).
More attempted mediation between the Chief Secretary and M in early 1873, in the dispute over M's management of the Botanic Garden, see C. Moore to J. Hooker, 24 February 1873 (in this edition as M73-02-24a).
Obscured by binding.

In earlier letters Moore commented on M's plight:

'Mueller's present position in the Garden is simply this—as Director he has of course general charge of the plants & grounds—but Ferguson his assistant has all the workmen under his direction & is responsible for the proper maintenance of the Garden. I doubt much whether this arrangement will work well or for any great length of time' (C. Moore to J. Hooker, 8 September 1870, f. 230, p. 4). He reported in detail on a visit to Melbourne a few months before M's position as Director of the Gardens was abolished, when he found 'poor Mueller' to be 'as miserable a man as there is in the whole Continent of Australia'; see C. Moore to J. Hooker, 24 February 1873 (in this edition as M73-02-24).

In C. Moore to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 17 July 1878 (RBG Kew, Directors Correspondence, vol. 173, f. 256) Moore wrote 'through Baron Mueller with whom I am again in friendly correspondence, I am in treaty with a pupil of his to take the position here of Collector and in charge of the herbarium'.  That negotiation evidently failed, because in a letter in the following month, Moore wrote that he had not succeeded in filling the post, and reported that 'Mueller of Melbourne has mentioned to me a man in Brisbane as likely to suit me' (C. Moore to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 15 August 1878, f. 258).

The annotations to the letter concern the specimens sent, and have not been transcribed here.
Commission agent, whose office was at 5 Harp Lane, Tower Street, London. The sentence is written in the central margin of the front of the folio.

Please cite as “FVM-M76-02-25,” 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 28 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/M76-02-25