Ferdinand von Mueller

16/3/81.

In reply to your kind letter of the 21 Jan.,

1

Letter not found.

dear Sir Joseph, let me say, that the plates for the 7th & 8th decade of the Eucalyptography

2

B80.13.14, B82.13.17.

are ready; but the extra duties for the exhibition

3

International Exhibition, Melbourne, 1880-1.

have prevented me from writing out in full the text. I hope however, that these two parts will soon appear.

The census of the

Acotyledoneae

Search for Acotyledoneae in

• This website
• Australian Plant Name Index

of all Australia

4

B80.11.01 and B81.13.12.

gives me nearly 3000 species. Beyond the algae, you have laid the foundation to the Cryptogamy of Australia in the Flora of Tasmania.

5

J. Hooker (1860), vol. 2 contained essays by specialists: Berkeley (1860), Harvey (1860), W. Wilson (1860), Mitten (1860), Babington & Mitten (1860).

What heavy expense it has been to me, to send the wood articles to Mr Chanter,

6

Chantre? See M to C. Chantre, 9 June 1880. See also M to J. Hooker, 4 December 1880, which is annotated: 'Scarcely any of the things were [avai]lable for Kew. The majority were duplicates and the collection was not worth the money'. Some items were however accessioned to the Kew museum collection: see notes to M to C. Chantre, 9 June 1880.

you will see from the accompanying account.

7

The account is not with the letter, and has not been found.

Any technologic Museum would receive any of the articles with the greatest thanks, especially as the series forwarded contained no duplicates. So I feel sure that Kew could get in interchange for these sendings very much more, than the mere freight has cost, from any kindred institution. If the packing &c had not been done at my place, the expenditure would have been several £ higher. But enough of this.

I take this opportunity to tell you, that I have at last managed by abolishing the chemical branch (the mere remnant of it) in my place, to save so much money as to send out a collector again, and despatched him last month to North Queensland.

8

Karsten. See M to J. Müller, 29 March 1882. Ludwig Rummel, who had been M's laboratory assistant, claimed compensation for loss of office but the Government maintained that he was not a public servant, being hired directly by M using money in the Departmental budget for contingencies, see L. Rummel to M, 19 May 1881.

I lately learnt, that Mr Walter Hill is also going there, in April, mainly to collect palms for you. So circumspect a person as Hill is sure to find out any more existing there, though I do not think, that very many more palms will be added to the Australian flora. This brings me to a solicitation; to allow me quietly to elaborate any other North-Queensland novelties, which Mr Hill & my collector are almost sure to discover simultaneously in the same or similar regions, except such plants as are wanted by special monographers at Kew. You have so many Treasures from Africa & South Asia and even America yet to elaborate at Kew, that you and your assistants can well afford to let me finish North-Queensland, especially as I gave up the whole alpine Flora of N. Zealand to you, a subject on which I had only this week a long conversation with Professor Von Haast, who is here to purchase articles for his Museum at the international Exhibition.

9

For an indication of general natural history trading activities at the Exhibition, see the discussion of Henry Ward's activities in Haast (1948), pp. 786-90.

I hope to proceed rapidly with the fragmenta, when the material from North Queensland comes in, and surely Mr Hill will let me have a set of his plants.

Had I not in such a senseless and cruel way been thrown out of my Garden, I should have had means for keeping a collector in the field & the flora of Queensland would have been more fully investigated by this time.

I am fully aware from my long Directorial experience, that the majority of palms can not easily be transmoved and so many ferntrees