Ferdinand von Mueller

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MS attached to a sheet with a specimen of the fern Pteridium esculentum. The folder also contains a typescript of Bond (1942), differing in minor respects, especially punctuation, from the published version both in Bond's introductory and concluding text and the published transcript of an extract of this letter. The extract includes all but 'at the same time ... matter' at the end of Fisher's letter.

Creswick

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Vic.

29th October 1861

Dr Sir

I enclose for your inspection a specimen of what I take to be a fern and beg to state that I am prompted to do so on account of the somewhat extraordinary place in which it was found – the plants are found in a line of deserted shafts – which have been abandoned for about four years – from about 6 to 12 feet from the surface and I am somewhat at a loss to conjecture the reason of it's

3

its? here and below.

being found in such a position when I take it into consideration that there is not the slightest indication of the same plant and so far as I could see of any of it's species on the surface at or near the place where it is found indeed, so far as my memory guides me I have not seen the same description of fern

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'flora' in published version.

growing in this Colony – it grows with long straggling roots on the sides of the shafts in a stratum of gravel and light loam – and it would be an interesting experiment to try whether the seed has been lying in this stratum for some considerable time and germinated upon exposure to the atmosphere.

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The discussion following the published transcription rules out the possibility of fern spores having laid dormant 'since the last geological upheavals in the Creswick area'.

Should you consider it worth your attention I shall be happy to afford you any assistance in my power, either in obtaining a portion of the stratum for experimentalysing upon or plants, at the same time I would not desire that my name should appear publicly in conjunction with the matter