WCP2292

[1]

Kew

Nov 26/72

Dear Mr Wallace

By all means use my name & send my card to Mueller.¹ Entre nous, do not forget the Baron Von — he is as vain as peacock. —

I shall be glad to hear if you succeed with any of the Australia alpines. We have failed with [2] them uniformly & even with the Tasmanians of 4000 — 5000 ft.!. I have had them put out of all ages, 1 — 6 year old plants, w by hundreds — none has stood 2 years without protection. The late frosts of spring are worse enemies than the ordinary winter cold.

Curiously eight of all the many green trees I have tried, the only [3] one that has lived is a hot² Adelaide one. It has been twice shifted, & twice cut to the ground by frost — but is still alive!. It is the damp cold with a cold soil that these things do not like.

So too of New Zealand things, but one has succeeded in the open air, Pittosporum tenuifolium;³ all the rest are killed off. I am now shy of [4] trying them, as when the public sees a plant sick or misses it, it is attributed to bad cultivation at once!

I was glad to see you at the Linnean, the only place now where I foregather with friends.

Ever yr | J. D. Hooker⁴ [signature]