Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M3a, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 71.12.17

Preferred Citation:

Joseph Hooker to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1871-12-17. 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/71-12-17>, accessed July 18, 2025

1
MS extracted at some stage from the collections at MEL but without recording the provenance. MS embossed with crest of Royal Gardens Kew.
Dec 17 /71
Dear Von Mueller
I have often tried to identify our Australian Palms, but hitherto in vain. Will you tell me what the Palm figured in Botanical Magazine t. 4961 as Seaforthia elegans ,
2
W. Hooker (1827-64), vol. 93, t. 4961.
& which has long been grown & known at Kew under that name, to which Brown
3
Robert Brown (1773-1858).
assented. Cunningham sent it some 30 years ago. Wendland however according to Seemann, says that it has nothing to do with Seaforthia elegans but is a Ptychosperma
In your Enumeration of Australian Palms Fragmenta V. 49.
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B65.07.03, p. 49.
you do not include the Coryphas — we have two which I have named australis & humilis .
Bull
5
Almost certainly the nurseryman William Bull (1828-1902), who was awarded a 'Botanical Certificate of Merit' for a Macrozamia exhibited at the Royal Botanic Society summer exhibition, June 1871 (Gardeners' c hronicle and a gricultural g azette, 17 June 1871, p. 768).
has just sent me a splendid Macrozamia near your description of M. Macleayi
6
Macrozamia macleayi was described in Miquel (1868), p. 250; it has been treated as a synonym of M's Encephalartos miquelii ( B62.05.01, p. 38), which was transferred to Macrozamia in A. de Candolle (1868), pp. 535-36, but it is possible that Hooker had misremembered the author of M. macleayi.
but frond very rigid
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Text ends, seemingly in mid-sentence, at bottom of page without valediction; it appears to be one half of a folded sheet from which the other half has been torn off.
Corypha australis
Corypha humilis
Macrozamia
Macrozamia Macleayi
Ptychosperma
Seaforthia elegans