Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Fungarium, In type cover for Mesophellia glauca, generic index 2.1.17.3.1 81.09.19

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Mordecai Cooke, 1881-09-19. 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/81-09-19>, accessed September 19, 2024

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The text is stamped with M. C. Cooke's herbarium stamp and accompanied by a note, dated 25.9.[19]79, signed with the initials RNH [R. N Hilton] : 'This letter, of 19.9.81, is from Baron Von Mueller, and must relate to the specimen Potoromyces loculatus . …'.
19/9/81
May I draw your particular attention to the enclosed fung, dear Dr Cooke, which seems to me to constitute a new genus nearest to
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. I have divided the few specimens so as to supply you, the Rev. M. J. Berkeley & the Rev C. Kalchbrenner.
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See also M to M. Berkeley, 19 September 1881 (in this edition as 81-09-19b).
The loculation by which the periperic sporiferous space is interrupted seems remarkable, so the large solid central mass which is granular under the microscope. The closely packed spreading millions of threads far more delicate than those of the finest spider webs, are — as you will notice — beset with egg shaped spores in uncountable vastness of number.
The name is derived from Potorous, that given by Desmarest to the Kangaroo Rats (from the Aboriginal appellation "Potoroo") these animals feasting on this fung, scraping it up from its concealment 3 or 4 inches underground. It came from a place near the coast between Point d’Entrecasteaux & Point Nuyts,
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WA. The associated specimen at Kew is labelled in M's hand ' Potoromyces loculatus , near the entrance of the Gordon River, West Austr. 1881, Th. Muir'. Hilton (1980) comments that it is the Gardner River that enters between Point d'Entrecasteaux and Point Nuyts, but that Muir farmed and collected near the inland Gordon River.
and was sent me by Mr Th Muir, whom like all other correspondents of mine I had repeatedly asked to secure any fungs he might meet with.
As
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indicates a sort of truffle, of which the stags are fond I hope you will think the allusion I made a happy one.
Of course I may be quite wrong in this for I never had time to study fungs methodically, my energies having
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