Document information

Physical location:

A644, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. 81.11.30

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to John Buchanan, 1881-11-30. 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/81-11-30>, accessed September 11, 2025

30/11/81.
Excuse me, dear Mr Buchanan,
1
John Buchanan (1819-1898).
that I left your full and interesting letter for 2 weeks unanswered, and delayed thanking you for the
Raoulia

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s, kindly sent. I am trying to finish off some literary work by the end of the year; & as the routine-engagements leave me anyhow but little leisure, I had lately no spare hours for any but very urgent correspondence. I feel greatly honored by your connecting my name with a
Veronica

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there, as it is such a lovely genus, the German species of which I named & collected already in my boyhood , and as hitherto not one plant in the N.Z. flora bore my name.
2
Buchanan (1882a), p. 351; plate 32, fig. 1.
In a few weeks I shall have some leisure, I hope, to investigate carefully the
Raoulia

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question; meanwhile you may "in free nature" be among them, & then you will see much better, how far the unisexuality may occur & extend in each species, than I ever shall be able to ascertain from dried specimens. The fresh capitula show the differences of sex at a glance, so that hundreds of specimens can be viewed in a short time. I suppose you will in the holidays be again among your alpine darlings.
Prof Petri
3
Donald Petrie.
wrote to me about the
Hemiphues

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, when 2 years ago he discovered it, & I pointed out to him, then, that the genus had given way to
Actinotus

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4
Letters not found.
It is curious that no Selaginella has yet been found in NZ, not even the S. uliginosa, which is so common in all the southern regions of Austr. & Tasmania. You may still find it, and so the minute mosslike S. Preissiana
Do you still think, that two
Caltha

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's can be kept separate in N.Z? A white-flowered & a yellow-flowered, or did Hooker describe the color of the flowers wrongly?
Allow me to ask whether you happen to have and can spare a few ripe fruit spikelets of the restiaceous genus
Sporadanthus

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? I further beg of you, to send me fresh some few ripe fruits of
Hartigshea

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5
Hartighsea?
(or
Dysoxylon

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) as I like to examine the arillers in connection with some Australian species, also a few flowers.
Your excellent remarks on the varied causes, which influence the alpine clime in your islands, give me a much better idea than I ever had on the subject before. I should have thought, that the tree-vegetation of the N. Island would have advanced above 4500 feet. In nearly the same latitude we have trees almost 1000 feet higher in upper Gippsland, indeed dwarfed trees in favorable spots up to 6000 and diminutive bushes up to 6500 feet.
With my best wishes for your welfare
Ferd. von Mueller.
A short paper on the semi dioecism of
Antennaria nubigena

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I have sent to the R.S. of Tasmania last month.
6
B82.13.12; see also M to J. Buchanan, 22 October 1881 (in this edition as 81-10-22a).
Have you a few ripe fruits of
Persoonia Tora

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to spare? What is their color.
Would Ran. Buchanani
7
Ranunculus buchanani.
at 8000 be the extreme limit of N.Z. Alp vegetation.