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Physical location:
ML MSS.3608 Clarke papers, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. 64.10.18Preferred Citation:
Ferdinand von Mueller to William Branwhite Clarke, 1864-10-18. 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//letters/1860-9/1864/64-10-18-final.odt>, accessed June 13, 2026
1
For a published version of this letter, see Moyal (2003), p. 699.
Venerable and dear friend.
I feel some reluctance to hazard on the systematic position of the plant, of which
you sent me a sketch of leaves, any opinion.
In candor I must confess, that the evidence in general on the
precise
specific characters of vegetable fossils is so slender, as to deter me from the hopeless
task of applying with rigor to them those principles on which the discrimination of
living plants is based.
Even if I had an opportunity of subjecting the specimens themselfes, you refer to,
to a microscopic inspection, I fear I should fail to throw on them, as long as they
are leaves alone, any light satisfactorily. Perhaps remnants of flowers or fruits
may be found with the leaves, when at once we could enter on the clear elucidation
of the subject.
Has ever anything be done in effecting the section at Stoney Creek? strata?
2
I have in a little work on the plants of the Chatham Islands,
which I shall have great happiness of sending to you within the next days for your
clement judgement, deposited in a few words my entire disapproval of the transmutation
theory.
3
B64.10.02.
With cordiality, reverend & esteemed Sir,
yr
Ferd Mueller