Ferdinand von Mueller

1

MS annotation: 'J. S'.

Melbourne bot Garden

[5]/11/71

Am I rightly under an impression, dear Dr Hooker, that you wanted a very large

Dicksonia antarctica

Search for Dicksonia antarctica in

• This website
• VicFlora
• Australian Plant Name Index

? If so, I will be happy to place the largest of nine, shipped by the Niagara at your disposal. They are my private property , as I bore all the expenses of getting these weighty stems from the ranges; and there will be no freight due on them. My Agents will have the whole nine consigned to them. I mean Mess C. Blackith & Co. If you think it desirable to secure two for Mr Booth in Hamburg also,

2

This statement is marked in the margin with a large cross.

you are quite welcome to them. But as he is such a rich man, and as I must keep my small means together, to maintain also the outward dignity of my new high rank,

3

The barony conferred on M by Karl I, King of Württemberg, on 6 July 1871.

the Flottbeck gentleman

4

i.e.John Booth, proprietor of the Flottbeck nursery near Hamburg.

might defray the freight for the two specimens from London to Hamburg. The shipping is effected 2 month earlier than desirable, and thus these treeferns may possibly encounter yet some of your late frosts in March ; but I must seize on opportunities as they offer themselves and hammer the iron while it is hot.

5

Niagara left Melbourne on 23 November 1871 and arrived in Gravesend on 2 April 1872 (London standard, 4 April 1872, p. 7).

It is so rarely to find an naval Gentleman ready to attend to the watering of these monsters of ferns on the voyage and it still more rarely, that the safe space (save against rats, frost and seawater) is got for such spacious individuals . As I said; I have no departmental means for such sendings, but oblige my friends as far as private resources admit of it. It might be well to ask Mr Booth at once, whether he requires these things;

6

See J. Booth to J. Hooker, 15 March 1872, RBG Kew Directors' correspondence, vol. 139, f. 64.

perhaps he is fully supplied and my Agent will send them off otherwise then[.] If after landing the stems for Mr Booth could go to Kew, until the frost passed , that would make the success more likely. It would be a pity, it after all the trouble and expense here, the success should be imperilled by some little short-coming in Europe.

At last this week I had a chance of sending a collector for a few days to King's Island, where a magnificent ship has just been wrecked.

7

When the iron clipper ship Loch Leven ran aground on King Island in Bass Strait on 23 October 1871, vessels were sent from Melbourne to salvage the cargo (Argus, October/November 1871, passim). M sent one of his staff, A. C. Neate, 'who was detached on a small scientific mission to the island'. Neate returned to Melbourne aboard Coorong on 7 November 1871 (Argus, 8 November 1871, p. 4).

So perhaps we will have again a few additions to the flora of Tasmania.

The Dicksonia intended for you is 18' long. I do not think any one of larger size did reach Europe

8

See J. Hooker to M, 22 June 1872.