Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M3, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 69.12.08

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Joseph Hooker to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1869-12-08. 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/69-12-08>, accessed September 11, 2025

Kew Decr 8 /69
My dear Mueller
I have your's asking for Veratrum album & viride;
1
See M to J. Hooker, 11 August 1869 (in this edition as 69-08-11b); M to J. Hooker, 14 August 1869 (in this edition as 69-08-14c); and M to J. Hooker, 14 October 1869.
I had already given orders for their being sent to you & we are also waiting until they shall be quite dorm. & then we shall pack the album & viride if strong enough in a little damp moss & send it overland in a box with holes bored in the side. The roots seem to be of a sort that should travel after this fashion — & if this fails we shall try again. The worst of a Wards case (or Wards Coffin as I now call them) is that these must be sent in summer, when the growing season has begun, & that then temperate plants make such tremendous & weakening growth in the tropics that they die after removal from the case.
I am most anxious to hear how the
Sarracenia

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s will arrive & shall hope to hear in time to send a box in this mid-winter season, which may be better than that in which we sent before. You must pot them in peat & a little loam, & keep them very cool & shaded but where they get plenty of air. I have great fears of their succeeding with you.
Eriophorum

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I sent a good tuft of I think in two cases, but I have not much hope of it.
I do wish could establish an exchange of small (hand) cases (Ward's) by overland & under careful private hands who would not desert them at Egypt, but bring them through France & Italy to England. Many a case is brought safe to Suez or Alexandria & destroyed on the passage thence home to England.
The
Todea

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is growing vigorously, & will make a grand show by next summer. We have abundance of
Dicksonia antarctica

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Alsophila australis

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&
Cyathea medullaris

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but we want good small trunks of the other Australian Tree ferns. I think I have asked you to try some of 2-4 feet in dry Saw dust (like the
Todea

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) with the fronds not cut off but turned down on the stem.
2
See J. Hooker to M, 10 September and 24 November 1869.
We have 4 or 5 good
Xanthorrhoea

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s of 4 feet apiece from K. G. Sound, & one from Queensland.
Who is a Mr O'Shanesy who has just sent me some seeds from Queensland?
Bentham is pretty well again, he had a most severe attack of Rheumatism & Sciatica which has pulled him down very by much — he is now busy with
Chenopodieae

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.
I suppose that the
Cinchona

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s never grew with you.
Eucalyptus polyanthemus

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is the only one that will stand an ordinary winter with us — We have tried scores of others.
Most try Yrs
3
Most truly Yours.
Jos D Hooker