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RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, ff. 395-6. 69.08.11bPreferred Citation:
Ferdinand von Mueller to Joseph Hooker, 1869-08-11 [69.08.11b]. 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/69-08-11b>, accessed September 11, 2025
1
MS annotation: 'And Oct. 30/'. Letter not found.
Your trip to St. Petersburg, dear Dr Hooker, must have been one of great pleasure.
I am glad also to hear, that you met the excellent Sonder on your home way.
This week by the Norfolk will be despatched to you box 53. It contains supplemental
Monochlamydeae, and besides a case with a cast of the great mass of gold, found in
this colony a few months ago, the
largest
authentic mass of gold on record. It was valued about £10,000 and found as a solid
block within a few inches of the surface!
Pray send on the cast to Prof Owen for the British Museum. The Professor will doubtless
arrange about having it gilded. The form is destroyed by the proprietor purposely.
2
The International Horticultural Congress was held in St Petersburg in May 1869. See
Huxley (1918), vol . 2, pp. 85–90; Hooker's itiinerary on his return included Hamburg
where he would have seen Sonder.
3
The “Welcome Stranger” nugget. Casts were also sent to Stuttgart and to Paris, see
M to F. Krauss, 14 August 1869 (in this edition as 69-08-14d).
I had some Todeas & Dicksonias at St Petersburg, but do not know, whether they recovered
in time for the exhibition. Possibly you are not aware, that I was the
first
, as far as I know, who moved large Todeas, and when I had demonstrated this here.
Verschaeffelt
got his Todeas from Mt Macedon. It is strange, that in the course of nearly 400 years
no one should have brought Todeas of large size to Europe from South Africa.
4
Verschaffelt? Ambroise Verschaffelt exhibited a Todea at the St Petersburg Congress
(Federation des Sociétés d’horticulture de Belgique (1869)), p. 16), although it was said to be from New Zealand.
I have to ask a special favor. Could you not get through Dr Asa Grays kind mediation
some seeds and roots of
Veratrum viride
[?]
The American physicians have drawn our attention to the use of this remarkably efficacious
plants in all cases where the circulation is to be retarded and we have witnessed
here from the effect of this Veratrum astonishing cases of reductions of large aneurism
5
Veratrum viride
is marked with a cross in the margin.
I should like to cultivate not only Veratrum viride but also
V. album
in the medicinal division of the Garden, neither of the species being as yet in Australia.
6
See also M to J. Hooker, 14 August 1869 (in this edition as 69-08-14c).
Mr Moore's plants from Lord Howe's Island are
very
interesting, and we have engaged on united expense one of the islanders to collect
for us through the season.
7
There is a large asterisk pencilled in the central margin against this paragraph,
but it may refer to the paragraph to its left, commencing
Is Thrixspermum …
I shall describe the new Spiridens in the next number of the Fragmenta.
8
M did not describe a new species of
Spiridens. However Hampe (1874), p. 668 described
Spiridens muelleri
among a collection of mosses from Lord Howe Island.
In the herbarium I use Lenormands method with great success to destroy insect life
by vapours of Bisulphid of Carbon.
Among the rare plants, obtained from New Caledonia, is Leptaspis Banksii.
Let me hope, that the Rev Mr Berkeley will collect his essays on diseases of plants
from the pages of the Gardeners Chronicle into a special little volume and bring it
up to a general pathology of plants with all the new discoveries of later days. The
book would sell well!
Can you not get me good seeds of Sechium edule from Madeira? where it is much cultivated?
The plant is not in Australia.
I have got a series of the plants collected by Schultz at Port Darwin. There is scarcely any novelty among it, still many plants are rare,
such as Fimbristylis xyridis [RBr] I will furnish to Mr Goyder a report on the collection.
9
i.e. F. Schultze. See M to J. Blackmore, 26 May 1869 (in this edition as 69-05-26b), and M to R. Schomburgk, 8 August 1869. M offered to write a note on Schultze's plants if Goyder planned to publish a report
on the expedition during which they were collected; see M to G. Goyder, 28 March 1870 (in this edition as 70-03-28c). Goyder did not issue a report, but M listed Schultze's plants in B69.10.01, p. 4.
Is Thrixspermum Loureiro (of barbarous etymology) = Sarchochilus? I have not Reichenbachs
Xenia
to see this.
10
Reichenbach (1858-1900); see vol. 1, p. 120, where Reichenbach treats
Sarcochilus
(R. Brown (1810), p. 332) as a synonym of Loureiro’s
Thrixspermum
.
A bound copy of vol. VI of Fragmenta goes to you & Mr Bentham by this mail.
With best regards
Ferd von Mueller.
Dicksonia
Fimbristylis xyridis
Leptaspis Banksii
Sarchochilus
Sechium edule
Spiridens
Thrixspermum
Todea
Veratrum album
Veratrum viride