Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M3, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 58.08.23

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Joseph Hooker to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1858-08-23. R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells (eds), Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, <https://vmcp.rbg.vic.gov.au/id/58-08-23>, accessed November 15, 2024

1
For a published copy of extracts of this letter see Daley (1927-8), pp. 91, 214-15.
Kew Aug. 23/58
Dear Dr Mueller
I enclose a copy of a few more suggestions & identifications as to your Australian plants.
2
Enclosure not found.
Perhaps you have had some from us before.
We have a large packet of mss &c some V.DL. &c specimens to thank you for. I am perfectly amenable to all your strictures on the Flora Tasmanica — no one has any idea how imperfect all such works must be — Every thing seems clear & easy & accurate till another year over the same ground. I cannot think you right about
Eucalyptus Risdoni

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— it covered the side of a hill on the Derwent; & Gunn found it equally abundant & invariable in other parts of the Island. — I think that Bentham has revised & sent
Barklya

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to the press — as to
Dennisonia

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it is a miserable looking plant to bear the name of the King of Australia & its dependencies!
3
B59.02.02.
Can you find no better plant for his honour? I have no doubt you are right as to several of my
Epacris

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being bad species, & you will do a prodigious service by reducing the species of this & many other Australian plants within their just limits.
Leucopogon

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is a terrible chaos,
Melaleuca

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is worse — as to Eucalyptus I hope your cortical characters will prove as infallible as you think they are, but Brown
4
Robert Brown (1773-1858).
seemed to think that perhaps you had systematized too much upon it. By the way Harvey suggested the remarkable similarity of
Dennisonia

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to the Cape genus Spielmannia that is in aspect — he sends his compliments & will write soon.
5
No letter from Harvey to M has been found.
I do hope you will not be too hasty in publishing. The Grasses & Monocotyledons will lead you into a perfect quag-mire of errors that will seriously damage your reputation eventually — I find that I cannot name the Indian species of Monocots. even approximately without working up the genera. I am now doing
Commelynaceae

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, several of yours are Indian, but I cannot name the Indian ones very accurately. What is now extremely wanted is that resident Botanists should work at the variations of species & a good paper from you on the limits of variation of the Victoria genera — especially such as
Epacris

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,
Leucopogon

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&c &c would immortalize you more effectually than describing new species without proper materials of books & Herbarium. I feel very much that you should desire the honor of publishing your own new discoveries, but the interests of science should be first consulted & what we do now so much want is good observations on previously known plants. I wish too that you could publish in a more methodical form, it is extremely difficult already to refer to your published descriptions & I am sure I omit referring to some that I would not intentionally give the go bye to — but life is short & books are long & the indifference of men of science to the convenience of posterity & contemporaries in publication is leading to unavoidable confusion I am sure you will not think me censorious in saying so much, but the subject proper & no one who has not worked in a great library and Herbarium has any conception of the amount of labor & time lost in approaching completeness & accuracy in descriptive Botany.
Have I told you that
Lippaya

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Endl. is
Dentella repens

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of India!
I am sending you another small packet of books to go with the Linneean parcel from Kippist. I think you are right to join that Society; it wants support, & if Botanists will not consent to be taxed for it, it cannot be kept up. As it is the Socy gives the equivalent in journal & transactions annually of fully half the subscriptions; & distributes its trans & journals very widely indeed. The fellows have had to subscribe upwards of £1000 to defray expences of removal
6
The Fellows were asked in 1856 to subscribe to the costs of removing the Society's quarters from Soho Square to Burlington House. See Gage & Stearn (1988), p. 15. Charles Darwin paid £20, and implied that this was the amount expected per Fellow. See Darwin to J. Hooker, 5 July 1856, in Burkhardt et al., (1985- ), vol. 6, p. 171.
& we are still badly off for money the library is in a very incomplete & deficient state — & we are giving up entirely a general Herbarium having no funds for it nor space nor curator nor is it required by the members. We retain the Linnæan, Smithian & Wallichian collections & have made a British Herb: but shall go no further in that line.
Our great object is to publish papers that could not be published in England but by such a body, & we shall spend most of our money on publishing. The majority of our Fellows are men of very limited income.
7
There is no valediction but the hand is Joseph Hooker's. The text ends at the foot of a page but the verso is blank, whereas the two earlier sheets of the letter have writing on both sides.