The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 19/5/69 ¶ ¶ I have to thank you, dear Dr Hooker, for your sending of a copy of your and Mr Bakers fern catalogue of your ¶ cultivated ¶ species. ¶ These are grateful plants mostly and generally, a...

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Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, ff. 381-2. 69.05.19a

Plant names

Epacris impressa
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Epacris pulchella
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- Australian Plant Name Index
Isoetes
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Xanthorrhoea Australis
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Xanthorrhoea quadrangulata
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Xanthorrhoea semiplana
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Joseph Hooker, 1869-05-19 [69.05.19a]. 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/69-05-19a>, accessed September 11, 2025

MS annotation: And [Jy] 16/69. The date is in a darker ink, and appears to have been added after And. It would appear to be referring to J. Hooker to M, 11 July 1869; see n. 9 to that letter.

19/5/69

I have to thank you, dear Dr Hooker, for your sending of a copy of your and Mr Bakers fern catalogue of your cultivated species.

Baker (1868).

These are grateful plants mostly and generally, as you know well, of easy culture. Would it be possible for your foreman to send me a good collection of spores, to allow me to raise them?

Your wish concerning the gigantic Todea has been complied with promptly. The stem of the one secured for the Kew fernery is 4'10" high and 3' 2" in diameter and weighs many hundred pounds. I think I shall be able to get it away by the Kent next week, but I am not sure. Hence the bill of loading can be sent by next mail.

I hope your garden people will be liberal in their reciprocity. In candor I must confess, though I do so with the most friendly feelings, that according to the books of my department Kew is deeply in my debt.

The species of Epacris are not easy of culture except E. impressa, which is the only one except E. pulchella near Melbourne.

I will try to send you , the only stembearing species near Melbourne. — The two species of St. Vincent's Gulf are X. quadrangulata and X. semiplana (fragm IV, 111

B64.05.01, pp. 111-2.

); of both I made notes as early as 1847, altho' I published them only in 1864.

With best regards

Ferd. von Mueller

The following text is written on f. 382, but that it is a postscript to this letter is supported by the contents of Hooker's note dated 15 July 1869, added to J. Hooker to M, 11 July 1869.

The enormous amount of work during the planting season, when from 60000 to 70000 plants have to be selected for schools, churches & cemeteries, has left me no time to get the few N Z specimens ready, which I intended to forward by this mail.

Are any specimens of Drummonds W.A. to spare at Kew? I have now the genus from N.Z!

Drummonds W.A. is marked in the margin with a cross.

In my second set of notes on Tasmanian plants I shall have about 20 new to the island.

B71.13.05. The paper was read at the meeting of the Royal Society of Tasmania on 8 March 1870, after which a special ‘vote of thanks’ was proposed to M as a ‘savant of such world-wide fame, and whose scientific labours are so much greater than we are aware of. [who communicates] so freely with this Society, when so many other corresponding members are silent’ (Papers and proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania for 1870, 1871, p. 4).