Document information

Physical location:

69.12.00

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to the Australasian, 1869-12. 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/1860-9/1869/69-12-00-final.odt>, accessed June 13, 2026

1
MS not found. The text given here is from 'To correspondents', Australasian, 4 December 1869, p. 720 (B69.12.02). The item is introduced as a response to '"A Subscriber" Wagga Wagga', as follows: ‘Dr. Von Mueller, to whom we submitted your specimen leaves, has kindly reported upon them:—'
The fragments of branches submitted to me are from the staminiferous plant of
Broussonetia papyrifira

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, the paper mulberry tree of Japan and China. This tree is far less valued for its fruits, which are dark purple, and comparatively insipid, than for its bark, which, in the above-named countries, since time immemorial, has been employed for the manufacture of paper. The tree has found its way long since into the South Sea Islands, where cloths are made of the bark, as related already by the early navigators. The pistilliferous plant, which alone bears fruit, requires to be associated with the one from which the branchlets were transmitted, and cuttings of the former I will be happy to supply from the Botanic garden.