The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 28/5/79. ¶ Could you, dear Sir Joseph, not lend us your ¶ powerful ¶ aid in getting seeds of the "Coapim" ¶ Panicum spectabile? ¶ You may have thought, that we ¶ had ¶ it in Australia, but I nev...

Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Brazil, Cultural Products Etc., 1852-1908, Miscellaneous Reports 16.5 (MR/759), f. 230. 79.05.28

Plant names

Agropyrum repens
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Andropogon Haleppensis
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Euchlaena luxurians
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Panicum spectabile
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Joseph Hooker, 1879-05-28. 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/79-05-28>, accessed June 24, 2025

28/5/79.

Annotated at top of letter: and to left of central margin Caapim de Angola | | Oplismenus spectabilis | Palm House | Brasil - Glaz[ion] Nov 12/79.

Could you, dear Sir Joseph, not lend us your powerful aid in getting seeds of the "Coapim"

M uses the spelling ‘Coapim’ in B85.13.26; modern Brazilian spelling is ‘capim’.

Panicum spectabile?

f. 231 in this volume is a draft letter, unsigned, dated Royal Gardens Kew September 11, 1880: Sir I am sending you a bag of seed of Panicum spectabile a tropical fodder grass which is much cultivated in Brazil where it is stated to yield the best and most copious produce of any. It is a native of Angola whence it was introduced into Brazil by the Portuguese who know it as ‘Caapim de Angola.’ It grows from six to seven feet high.

f. 232 is a sheet of rough notepaper on which W. Thiselton-Dyer(?) has written: Half to Baron von Mueller followed by a list of fifteen places or people.

See M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 26 November 1880.

You may have thought, that we had it in Australia, but I never yet saw here or elsewhere a living plant. What the Adelaide bot. Garden for several years has sent out as P. spectabile is merely the Cuba-grass, ,

A. halepensis?

praised since Theophrastos time, i.e. nearly 2000 years, and cultivated by me since 1858. It is a good grass also, but apt to spread in cultivation like Agropyrum repens. Had I been left in my Directorship all these things could have been attended to also.

Regardfully yr

Ferd von Mueller

I wrote latterly to Dr Kirk of Zanzibar

John Kirk. Letter not found.

for the seeds of the P. spectabile, but he may not have it on the eastern side of Africa.

Your splendid plate of gives a good idea of this noble grass.

Hooker (1865-1904), vol. 105, pl. 6414. There is a sideline in the central margin of the letter beside this passage.

I had seeds 3 years ago from Bourbon

Réunion, Indian Ocean.

& from Paris, and two years ago it bore immensely at Muellersville, poor Thozet’s place, from whence it is gone over all the warmer parts of Australia. Here we must keep it under glass.