Ferdinand von Mueller

1

MS black-edged. For a published version of this letter see Daley (1927-8), p. 97.

Kew Sept 22/61.

Dear Dr Mueller

We have all been extremely gratified by the liberal spirit, in which you have met the wishes of your friends here with regard to the Australian Flora,

2

See M to W. Hooker, 23 July 1861.

& Bentham; & you may depend that we shall make every arrangement for the fullest & most prominent acknowledgement of your Herbarium name services & aid in the title page & throughout the body of the work. Do you know I think you very wise to give up the idea of writing an Australian Flora in Australia — whatever the extent & value of your collection — granting even that they were greater than ours, still to have published such a work without reference to the collections of Banks, Baudin, Freycinet, D,Urville,

3

i.e. d'Urville.

Brown & Cunningham,

4

Robert Brown (1773-1858). Allan Cunningham.

would have brought an amount of odium upon your work that it would never have recovered — & indeed I feel positive that you would yourself have become dissatisfied long before its conclusion. Nor have you any idea I am sure of the time & labor required for it — it is a task that I should have well liked & for which I have made more preparation than any one in Europe, by the study & arrangement of all our Australian plants here in the Linn. Soc & many of those of Brit. Mus. but I shrink from the task, which would be incompatible with my other work.

Very many thanks for your notes on genera,

5

Hooker may be referring to a paragraph in M to W. Hooker, 25 July 1861 (in this edition as 61-07-25a), where Joseph Hooker’s attention was directed to new genera in the proof pages of B62.03.02.

pray send me all you can & we will thankfully acknowledge those we are indebted to you for. I am greatly puzzled with

Cadellia

Search for Cadellia in

• This website
• Australian Plant Name Index

, its 2-4 ovules in each cell remove it from

Malpighiaceae

Search for Malpighiaceae in

• This website
• Australian Plant Name Index

even more than the 5 ovaries & habit. It is a very curious plant which I do not know where to put yet.

By the way we cannot allow you to be at all expense of sending your Herbarium backward & forward. We shall pay one way at any rate & I will see that we add to it scraps of all the species it wants, wherever they can be broken off, so as to make it as complete as possible before returning. — Your letters

6

M to W. Hooker, 23 July 1861, and M to W. Hooker, 25 July 1861 (in this edition as 61-07-25a).

only came last Tuesday, my Father returned much better on Friday. Bentham is in Paris & will be back next week

I am extremely glad that you are going on with the Victoria Flora,

7

B62.03.03.

it will do you a great deal of credit in every way — it will be a standard work as long as Botany remains, & must be so, whereas an Australia Flora must have been superseded & thereafter rejected.

8

Cf. J. Hooker to M, 24 May 1861, where Hooker says that Bentham's work 'should last & the book be a standard for all time'.

The Public must always know that no man can be so well qualified as you for the V. Flora; that you have all materials, original views of circumscription of species, & thorough competency:— improvements & discoveries may follow, but it must always be Standard & can never be superseded, it is a work of a widely different & in most respects of a much higher order of merit than the Flora of Australia; from this thorough character. The Flora of Australia on the other hand will be at best an important sketch — no genus can be worked out as you do a Victorian one, in the Vict. Flora, & its greatest value in our era will be derived from its working up the Collections of the last century into a systematic form & writing off the stain upon our Science, which has been left through our neglect of the collections of Banks, Brown &c &c.

I have been so busy with "Genera Plantarum

9

Bentham & Hooker (1862–83).

that I have had little time for distribution but I shall soon have some nice things for you, W. African especially — not many but very choice — it is an awful country to collect in.

Your seeds are growing famously at Jerusalem.

10

See J. Hooker to M, 20 October 1860, and M to J. Moore, 15 January 1862.

When Mr Leay goes out (in a few weeks) I shall send you Papyrus again & a good lot of seeds &c &c

I am very pleased that you are gratified with your R. S. election.

11

M had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London.

I am the more glad, as not being on the Council, I had no direct vote, & could only do what I could outside the Election room. I believe you were elected without any opposition whatever.

The Following are the Parts of the Pharm. Soc. Trans

12

Quarterly journal and proceedings of the Pharmaceutical Society of Victoria; see M to W Hooker, 25 July 1861 (in this edition as 61-07-25a).

which we have

Vol.I. pts 1, 2, 3, 4 (no more)

II - 1, 2, 5, 6, 8 (no more) all the rest are wanting.