Ferdinand von Mueller

28/4/85.

With the last mail honored Sir, I sent to you an English excerpt from your important dissertation on the color of the human iris &c in relation to hereditary circumstances, this extract being prepared for our Austral. medical Gazette by the President of our Victorian Branch of the Brit. Medical Association, Dr Rudall, who is also a leading opthalmic Operator here.

1

'Heredity in the colour of the eyes in the human race', Australasian medical gazette, vol. 4, pp. 161-2 (April 1885). The extract is introduced as follows: 'For this abstract from the essay of M. Alf. de Candolle we are indebted to Mr. James T. Rudall, F.R.C.S., Eng., of Melbourne, who at the special request of Baron von Mueller, K.C.M.G., &c., &c., to whom the essay was sent by the author, made the necessary translation for the A.M.G., which will be, we are sure, most interesting to our readers.'

Now I beg to forward to you some samples of Quercus from near Cordova in Mexico, sent on my request to me by Mr Hugo Finck; the material is too imperfect for critical examination here, more particularly as in my library the essays and other special works on Mexican plants are very imperfectly contained; thus I have not Prof. Liebmanns memoir.

2

Liebmann (1869)?

The object of getting the leaves and fruits of the Mexican species of Quercus was chiefly, to ascertain the names of the best trees for wood and for tan -bark. Quercus Skinneri I was able to identify from Hooker's figure. One of those, now forwarded, may be only a large-leaved form of Q. virens. I have made for years attempts, to get information, what are the best pines and Oaks in Mexico; but even a letter written on my behalf by my friend Cardinal Haynald to the Archbishop of Mexico proved quite without result . Should you have in your former important study of Quercus for the prodromus

3

A. de Candolle (1864), pp. 2-109.

met with notes on the utility of any particular species, I should be very much obliged for copies, as I could utilize them for a new Victorian edition of the volume on "select plants for industrial culture", to be issued at the end of 1885.

4

B85.12.03.

Mr Hugo Fincks names cannot be relied on; thus he confused Quercus Skinneri and Q. corrugata. I shall acknowledge publicly any kind help from you in the new edition; and as you have probably looked through the one, so splendidly brought out by Mr Davis in Detroit

5

B84.13.22.

and so well reviewed in the United States,

6

See, for example, the review in The gardeners' monthly and horticulturalist, March 1885, p. 92, and the brief notice in The cultivator and country gentleman, 1 January 1885, p. 11.

you may perhaps be able to favor me with some other additional data. The acorns, now forwarded, are mostly not matched with leaves, and the leaves not with acorns, and so you may have some difficulty to identify them, especially as the Vernaculars are not recorded in the prodromus. I add also specimens of 2 Papuan Oaks; but Dr Guppy was wrong in stating, that he had seen an Oak in the Solomon's Islands; he brought me only the leaves; but the supposed Acorns, which I did not see , are pronounced at Kew as no Quercus nuts .

7

See M to J. Hooker, 10 December 1884, and the notes thereto.