Melbourne bot Garden
16/4/63.
My very dear Sir.
I gratefully acknowledge the receipt of the bill of loading of the two boxes shipped
return by the "Roxb. Castl." They will probably soon arrive.
Your verifications of the dubious plants of French writers is highly interesting &
important. Who could have imagined that D.C.
would take (even without flowers or fruit) a
for a
.
I am looking forward with great pleasure to the proof of your work. Allow me in first
instance to say, that I found it too difficult to get (in my large department) my
arrangements completed, so as to allow me to proceed home by this months mail & hence
I must defer the voyage for a season (or for an indefinite period) as I would arrive
too late in the year at home did I go next month. The interests of my establishment
are too large to be sacrificed & hence notwithstanding my fluctuating health, I must
endeavour to struggle on. But I am obliged to take great care of myself, if I will
not succumb. You will see this in the melancholic expression of the photograph which
I enclose.
Nevertheless I shall concentrate all my energies now on working with you. The 3 vol.
of the Fragmenta is ready & will go to you probably by this mail. The Expedition plants
are also examined, the annual report
is written & winter work for the garden arranged. So I shall have time to go on with
the
, & if I find I am too slow I will send them off without examination.
You
must under any circumstance not be delayed in your glorious progress. Occasionally
some novelties will come in, especially as we have a collector in N.E. Australia;
there is also yet something in Oldfields Murchison River collections to be described,
but as I reserved for myself the monopoly of those plants, I can afford letting them
lay by for awhile. In a few weeks the new rooms in my house
will be completed so that my library may be properly accessible, and I shall work
then so much easier.
Mr Heward wrote that the collections of Cunningham, so considerately & so liberally
given over to Kew,
were contained in 200 boxes.
If this excludes the Brazil. & N.Z. plants it will be enormous! and will entail a
great amount of work on you to revise such a bulk, altho' again so valuable for the
study of individual forms. Pray give me for curiositys sake an idea of what proportion
my collections bear to the conjoined collections of Australian plants at Kew.
You express some slight displeasure of my having sent the notes on Gregorys
N.W. Austral plants to Prof. Balfour. For nothing in the world would I merit your
censure, & you will find, when turning to the pages, pushed so rapidly through the
press, that I did not merit it.
There is in the essay
not a single diagnosis of
, but very few in other divisions of the system of plants, and the critical notes
are few & scarcely any p[e]rtaining of the orders promulgated in your first volume.
I owed the bot. Soc of Edinburgh some material as an acknowledgement of honorary election
& that was the only reason of sending the manuscript to Prof. Balfour, though his
various kindful attentions entitle him to my gratitude. The few introductory remarks
in the essay are, I think, altogether beyond the scope of your flora. Moreover you
had
everyone
of the specimens on which my paper was based & hence it never occurred to me that
any privation could arise to your work in my not placing the notes in your hands.
You will see the whole is mainly ennumerative & written to fulfil a pledge given to
Walcott. If I caused by my action any inconvenience it was truely unintentional.
I am just packing a case with filices for Sir Will. Hooker.
They will go by the "Great Britain" and probably there will be sufficient space in
the case to admit of introducing some fascicles for your second volume, which I presume,
will be filled up with
&
.
I will not unnecessarily occupy your time with a long letter, therefore wishing you
health & strength for the continuation of your inestimable labours & expressing my
thanks for the large concession you have made for me in your work & of which I feel
extremely proud I remain, dear Sir,
your attached
Ferd Mueller
I hope to send the 3 vol of the Fragmenta bound by this mail.
Pray give me the sequence of orders for vol. II if you do not wish to restrict it
to
&
.
The Fragmenta contain now after completion of vol. III diagnoses of 50 Genera & somewhat
more than 1000 species.
