Document information

Physical location:

Letters received, box 9, Borough Council records, Warrnambool, Victoria. 67.02.05

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to a friend of Warrnambool Borough Councillor Hider, 1867-02-05. 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/1860-9/1867/67-02-05-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

1
This letter was directed to a 'friend' of Councillor J. Hider 'who feels interested in the matter of sand encroachment' and had sought advice from M as to how to check the nuisance.
Melbourne Botanic Gardens
Feby 5th 1867.
Sir
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this day
2
Letter not found.
by which you desire information how the ingress of the sand on the town area of Warrnambool could be checked.
The first condition to accomplish this object is the necessity of rigourously excluding all cattle goats and other pastoral animals from access to the drifting sand and its vicinity in order to prevent the natural vegetation which binds together the rolling sands from being destroyed.
The second condition for rendering the sand waves stationary consists in encouraging vegetation not only on the sand itself but also on the adjoining flats.
The vegetation to be established must consist of plants with long creeping roots and must of course comprise species adapted for sandy ridges. On the adjoining flats however seacoast firs
Pinus pinaster

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and
Pinus maritima

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should be planted and if our native coast
Casuarina

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is planted (Sheoak) it will aid in establishing wood. For the sand ridges themselves it may be found most convenient to choose such native plants as we see originally covering the hummocks. I would especially point to the
Mesembryanthemum

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(vernacularly called pigscheek) which by dray loads can be brought from adjoining localities to the Sand. In Denmark I noticed that the inhabitants of such coast parts as I visited planted the reedy native sand grasses which have long underground roots, on any spot which became bare of vegetation. Similar reedy grasses are wild on our own coast. It will also be advisable to disseminate the Australian Couch grass (
Cynodon Dactylon

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) which delights in sandy soil and forms closely matted patches.
Indeed it would still be better to plant as soon as the cool weather sets in this grass extensively by transferring it to the locality in a growing state. Perennial grasses of any kind should be sown in the vicinity of the sand. The seeds of these are cheaply available in our warehouses The sand tea tree (
Fabricia laevigata

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) so common on most parts of the coast should be sown on the flats adjoining the sand. For this purpose the seeds can be most readily collected in large quantities by any gardener. Ground might be ploughed for its reception. But all these operations become of no avail unless the ground be fenced.
A third condition to secure the Town against the inroads of the sand is the appointment of a zealous and intelligent man to exercise a constant vigilance over the young plantations and to prevent the access of cattle &c also the unnecessary traversing of the sand. For such a duty a gardener would be best qualified because he could supervise simultaneously the formation and maintenance of plantations
I have &c &c
(Signed) Ferdinand Mueller
Extract from a work on Physical Geography &c
3
T. Milner (1846), p. 549 (or later edition).
Eighth—Sand plants as Carex arenaria or Sea carex,
Calamagrostis arenaria

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or small sand reed and
Plantago arenaria

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or sand plantain.
By the cultivation of these plants large districts have been reclaimed from utter barrenness and clothed with stately forests; and countries subject to a periodical invasion of Sand blown over them by the prevalence of certain winds have been rescued from that calamity — one of the most useful agricultural enterprises of modern times — The plan was first adopted by an engineer of the name of Bremontier on the coast of G[ascony.]
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Obscured by binding; word completed from Milner's text.
He sowed in the driest and most shifting sand the seeds of the broom
Genista Scoparia

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mixed with those of the sea pine (pinus maritima), and] then covered over the spaces that were sown with branches from the nearest pine forests by which means the sand was to a certain extent prevented from shifting. The broom which sprung up first serves the double purpose of further restraining the sand and of nursing the young pines and the foliage of the latter after a growth of seven or eight years under shelter of the broom becoming annually mingled with the sand tends to fertilize it. After this period the pine overtops the broom and frequently entirely kills it with its shade. In ten or twelve years the rising forest is thinned for the manufacture of tar and for procuring branches to cover the newly sown districts. After twenty years have passed a fall of the trees commences for the manufacture of resin. Thus these forests placed on the dunes or drifting sand hills between the mouths of the Adour and the Garonne shelter the whole country behind them from the inroads of the element from the sea and yield themselves a supply of an important article of commerce.
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Councillor Hider thought M's letter was 'full of valuable information' and forwarded it to the Editor of the Warrnambool examiner for publication (B67.02.02). Hider thought M's plan would probably entail considerable expense, and the Council could not expect any financial assistance from the Government. Consequently he suggested a simplified version of M's plan be adopted whereby the space fenced in by the Council would be divided into about 25 sections which would be allotted to any persons willing to take charge of them for the purpose of improvement. To encourage these citizens in their work the Council would award monetary prizes for the three best sections (£10, £5, £3) at the end of three years (Warrnambool examiner, 15 February 1867).
A report of the Borough's Sand Committee the following year urged 'upon the Council the necessity of obtaining before April next a sufficient supply of the undermentioned seeds named by Dr Mueller in his report of Feb. 5th 1867 for sowing generally over the enclosure', listing the species included in M's letter (J. Bromfield to Mayor of Warrnambool, 27 April 1868 (Letters received, box 9, Borough Council records, Warrnambool, Victoria).
See also Heathcote & Maroske (1996).