The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 2/5/86. ¶ ¶ Let me thank you, dear Mr Dyer, for the seeds just received and for various previous sendings. They come in always in usefully one way or the other. So feel much beholden to you; they alw...

Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew Correspondence. Australia. Mueller, 1882-1890, f. 173. 86.05.02

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to William Thiselton-Dyer, 1886-05-02. 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/86-05-02>, accessed September 11, 2025

2/5/86.

Annotated by Thiselton-Dyer in purple pencil to left of date: 18.6.86 | I think this must have been otherwise disposed of. W.T.T.D. | And 10/7/86 [letter not found].

Let me thank you, dear Mr Dyer, for the seeds just received and for various previous sendings. They come in always in usefully one way or the other. So feel much beholden to you; they always are sent on at once to me from the Governors Office.

You were so good to offer me some time ago the native Japanese publication

native Japanese publication underlined in blue pencil.

on plants, of which Kew had a copy to spare.

Letter not found.

I find that I did not yet acknowledge that gracious offer; if not too late, I gladly accept it.

In a memorandum (f. 174, D. Oliver to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 19 June 1886), Oliver suggested that the 20 volumes of the requested publication (Iinuma et al. (1874)) could be made up into a box containing parcels of herbarium specimens. The back of the memorandum lists the other contents of the box. It contained some plants being returned to M, plants from India, Fiji, [St Helena] and Australia (from Miers' herbarium). A parcel from W. Mitten, some fungi, and some algae from W. G. Farlow were also included. It was sent on 10 July. See M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 31 August 1886 and M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 2 October 1886 (in this edition as 86-10-02b), and M to W. Mitten, 3 October 1886.

If you not have an opportunity to send it direct, it would come with other books from Dulau & Co.

I was since some time quite unable to complete the collection of the additional Australian collections at Kew. The Exhibition of London,

Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886.

Royal Commission for new vegetable industries (for which a new edition of the “select plants”

B85.12.03

had to be brought out, as ours of 1876

B76.12.04.

was here exhausted), also work in connection with New Guinea pressed me hard in addition to the always heavy routine work. I did not leave my work tables all the Easter holidays, except one evening, when I attended on the Capt and Officers of the “Vestnick”.

Vestnick, a corvette of the Russian Navy, arrived in Melbourne on 27 March 1886; the captain and officers were received at the Town Hall by the Mayor of Melbourne on 31 March and attended a concert in the Zoological Gardens on 10 April. No events in which the officers took part have been found for the Easter period (Easter Sunday, 25 April): a reception may have been held on board before it departed on 30 April, but no evidence has been found.

Regardfully your

Ferd von Mueller

The printer has not yet finished the notes for the Myoporinae;

B86.08.05.

so the volume will get late to the Exhibition.

The printer ...Exhibition written in central and left margins, f 173 back.