Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. The text given here is from ‘Australian trees’, in ‘Foreign Correspondence’, Gardeners' chronicle and agricultural gazette, 4 May 1867, p. 462 (B67.05.01).

The trees of Australia hitherto known are approximately 930. These have lately been statistically tabulated in an essay on Australian vegetation for the International and the French Exhibition.

2

Intercolonial Exhibition of Australasia, Melbourne, 1866-7 (B.67.13.02); Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1867. The list, 'The trees of Australia, phytologically named and arranged, with indication of their territorial distribution', is at pp. 268-86 of B67.13.02.

At a glance thus the nature of the trees and their number in any of the great colonial divisions of Australia can be ascertained. Trees impress on each country's vegetation its principal feature. Comparative statistics would be of high interest, and would lead to the development of many new resources. As yet we possess not even a complete special statistical enumeration of the trees of Europe.

Lately several trees of

Eucalyptus amygdalina

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(the species of which now so much oil is imported into Europe) have been measured at the Upper Yarra and in Dandinang.

3

Typesetter’s error for Dandenong [Vic]?

The highest known is ascertained to be 480 feet, therefore as high as the Great Pyramid. The oil of this species was first, by the writer of this note, exhibited in Europe at the Exhibition of 1862.

4

International Exhibition, London 1862 (1862), p. 142 includes M's collection of 'Resins and oils from various indigenous trees and plants' as item 123; there are other M entries listed among the exhibits from Victoria (see pp. 140-8, but none specify the oil of this species. See also M to W. Hooker, 29 January 1862 (in this edition as 62-01-29a).