Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, f. 409. 69.11.06a

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Joseph Hooker, 1869-11-06 [69.11.06a]. 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/69-11-06a>, accessed September 11, 2025

1
MS annotation by Hooker: 'Ansd March 2[9]'. See J. Hooker to M, 28 March 1870 (in this edition as 70-03-28b).
6/11/69
I feel very grateful to you, dear Dr Hooker, for your attentive kindness in causing the
Bambusaceae

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and
Bromeliaceae

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to be forwarded by the Essex.
2
See J. Hooker to M, 9 July 1869. Essex left London on 23 August and arrived in Melbourne on 10 November 1869 with '4 cases of plants, Dr. Ferdinand von Mueller' (Argus, 11 November 1869, p. 4).
They will be a great boon. It is all the more kind of you, as you had to send them amidst all your unusual turmoil of rebuilding.
I can send one or two more
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s, if needed. In fairness I can claim the merit (such as it may be) of having moved first of all these monsters, altho' this might have been done from South Africa 300 years ago.
Gradually an other case with museum-plants is filling for Mr Bentham (Supplemental
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)
It must be a great enjoyment to be in daily direct conversation with that man of real genius, Asa Gray. Pray give him my kind regards.
3
Asa Gray and his wife based themselves in a house near Kew during their European and Egyptian trip of 1868-9 (Dupree (1859), pp. 337-41).
Pray, have you plants of
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to spare? I had seeds from Peru, but they failed to germinate.
There has been a desire to withdraw from me the Directorship of the bot. garden, which I hold as an honorary office. Such a measure would however be humiliating to me after 13 years service, during which I mainly formed the garden &c. This measure besides would have divided authority and impaired my work, & I have thus been forced to resist this intended innovation, and as far as I can see it will not be done.
Pray let me send my best salutation to the good & venerable Bentham. I am sadly suffering from Laryngitis; this and the distractions, which defending my directorate from encroachment, must plead my excuse for the hurried & confused lines I adress just to you.
Always your
Ferd von Mueller