Ferdinand von Mueller

i.e. Leichhardt.

The Acting Secretary, Gerard Krefft, was 'directed to inform Dr Müller that the Trustees had granted his request and to thank him for the donation of his works on the Plants of Australia' identified as Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae , 3 vols [B60.02.04, B62.02.03, B63.04.06] and Plants indigenous to the colony of Victoria [B62.03.03].

At the meeting held on 5 November 1863, a letter from M [letter not found] was read 'informing the Board that he had despatched part of the Leichardtian Herbarium arranged & named to the Trustees' (Minutes, General Committee 1863-74, p. 26

However, many Leichhardt specimens remain in MEL (AVH, accessed 20 November 2024, returned 2,542). Maiden (1908a), p. 108-9, wrote: 'Mr. Lynd, who was Leichhardt’s friend and executor, presented Leichhardt’s herbarium to the Sydney Museum, and at Baron von Mueller’s request, it was forwarded to Melbourne for investigation, some years later. Very few of the plants were, however returned, and these were handed by the Trustees of the Australian Museum to my predecessor (Mr. Moore), a few years ago. I incorporated them in the National Herbarium of New South Wales founded by me, and thus they form part of a herbarium for Sydney which Leichhardt had only seen in a vision'. (AVA records show 1,121 for Leichhardt specimens at NSW, some of which have M's 'Botanical Museum of Melbourne' label of the same style as those on MEL Leichhardt specimens, some with plain paper labels in M's hand, and others have plain paper labels not in M's hand, as well as determination labels by later botanists who have used the specimens. The sample of specimens examined had no indication of how or when they were acquired by the NSW herbarium.

It is probable that the specimens returned in November included those that M had examined as he worked up the families already sent to Kew for Bentham (1863-78); see Lucas (2003). If that is the case, Poaceae specimens such as that of Spinifex sericeus (NSW115101)—treated in vol. 7. p. 504 under S. hirsutus, the name on the MS label on the specimen—would probably have been returned after September 1876 when the main group of Gramineae were sent to Kew (M to G. Bentham, 26 September 1876). Bentham did not mention a specimen from Leichhardt in his treatment of S. hirsutus , although he did so in descriptions of many other species. M did report a Leichhardt specimen (B73.12.01, p. 138) where he listed it as from 'Newcastle'. On 26 September 1843, the date on the label, Leichhardt is known to have been examining 'the coastal geology section at Nobby's Island [southern side of Hunter River estuary, Newcastle, NSW] and southward'; University of Newcastle, Library Special Collections, 'Ludwig Leichhardt in Newcastle' ( https://hunterlivinghistories.com/2013/01/29/ludwig-leichhardt-in-newcastle/ , accessed 20 November 2024). That is consistent with the note on the label that it was collected on the 'Seashore', but without a definite location.