Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, ff. 344-5. 68.09.10

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Joseph Hooker, 1868-09-10. 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/68-09-10>, accessed September 11, 2025

1
MS annotation: 'Ansd Nov 10/68'. Letter not found.
10/9/68
I was much pleased, dear Dr Hooker, to see among the Cuba Fungi a few of mine from Australia recorded by the Rev Mr Berkeley
2
Berkeley & Curtis (1869). Trametes mulleri was named on p. 320, with habitat listed as Victoria River, Australia, Brazil. Several other species were described from Australian specimens, e.g. Peziza (Discina) hirneoloides, from Clarence River, the site of several other species listed and a frequent source of M specimens. No collector information is given for any specimen.
& so one to which he attached my name. Of this I am quite proud, all the more as it occurs also in Brazil, where I collected before I came to Australia, altho' the plants I brought from there were soon subsequently consumed in a conflagration at Adelaide.
I got safely back the big and the small box with
Epacrideae

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. It is always a relief to ones mind to see these treasures safely return from their [dou]ble and long seavoyage.
I have been extremely busy lately in other extrawork, such as the remodellation of the Board for Agriculture
3
See M to J. Grant, 27 August 1868.
and the issue of a new gardencatalogue involves.
4
The catalogue was apparently ready for printing soon after this letter was written; see notes to M to E. Symons, 19 September 1868 (in this edition as 68-09-19a). It remained unpublished in March 1869 (M to W. Macarthur, 19 March 1869); indeed, no published version has been found. The MS is transcribed as 'Garden-Catalogue 1868' in the 'manuscripts' section of this website.
The latter will facilitate our interchanges and I trust be sent you by next mail. It is however a sinful waste of time to compile these indices in the absense of a new edition of Steudel
5
The second and final edition of Steudel's Nomenclator botanicus ... was published in 1840-1.
or a supplement to that work Really all ought to combine, who are administering large gardens, to get somehow or the other a new synonymic written, in order that unnecessary names or even barbarous ones in our gardens could be expunged. I have just established a new genus among
Proteaceae

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,
Buckinghamia

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in honor of the Duke, as Minister for the Colonies
6
Buckinghamia

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(B. celsissima) was erected in B68.12.02, p. 248. See M To H. Manners-Sutton, 10 September 1868.
It differs chiefly from
Grevillea

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in the plurality of seeds. It is a fine tree from Rockingham's Bay. To this fourth new genus of
Proteaceae

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I have to add a fifth, but it is too imperfectly represented in my collection to establish it properly.
In reference to your question concerning the parturition of the natives I send you a letter from a Gentleman, who lived for 30 years among them and has watched closely their habits.
7
Neither the letter asking the question nor the ‘letter from a Gentleman' has been found.
I never felt attracted to these people myself, though I sympathize with them in their present condition. Thus I know little of their habits and customs from ocular observation.
The plate of the
Ipomoea Nil

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var. in Bot Magazine is very pretty.
8
J. Hooker (1865-1904), vol. 94, t. 5720. 'Pharbitis Nil; var limbata ... The most beautiful plant here figured was raised from seeds collected in North Australia, and sent by Dr Mueller to Kew, where it flowered in a stove in May of the present year...’. See J. Hooker to M, 15 May 1868 (in this edition as 68-05-15b). Pharbitis nil is an 1833 synonym for Ipomoea nil (1797).
Would not a root of
Iris Pseudacorus

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travel to my Lake here?
Your attached
Ferd von Mueller