The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: Melbourne bot garden ¶ 18/6/72 ¶ Private ¶ ¶ The enclosed report may interest you dear Dr Hooker. Look — please — at the answers to a series of questions drawn up by me particularly those regarding f...

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Physical location:

RBG Kew. Kew Correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1871-1881. f. 44. 72.06.18a

Plant names

Cycas
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Geranium
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Iris
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Moraea
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Nelumbo nucifera
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Passiflora Bonapartia
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Petunia
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Verbena
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Joseph Hooker, 1872-06-18 [72.06.18a]. 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/1870-9/1872/72-06-18a-final.odt>, accessed May 15, 2026

Melbourne bot garden

18/6/72

Private

The enclosed report may interest you dear Dr Hooker. Look — please — at the answers to a series of questions drawn up by me particularly those regarding forests.

Probably B72.14.01. The answers to the fifteen questions circulated to over 800 people are summarized on pp. 11-28.

And in the face of this state of things the people of Edw Wilson and of the "Leader" here kept by writing me methodically down the Forest Inspector for three yours

years?

out of the forests! to invade the bot Garden, and to remove my valuable Californian, Queensland Arabian and other trees to plant Scarlet s, s & s in their state!

stead?

This is Victorian Statesmanship called forth by (Argus) Journalism in her Majestys Colony Victoria anno dei 1872! and that is the fate (for the time) of the Melbourne bot Garden! Half the species of the outdoor plants are dead, and I do not yet see the end of this horrible mischief and of the sacrifice of my work, though the change of the Ministry may bring better days now for me, my work & my Department.

The Government led by Charles Gavan Duffy was replaced by one headed by James Francis on 19 June 1872.

Mr Smith's work on useful plants

J. Smith (1871).

has not yet reached me. Perhaps some of my notes in print, now partly sent,

Probably early sections of B72.13.02.

will clash with his.

Ought Prof Oliver not have at least alluded to ?

Oliver (1868-77), vol. 1, does not include in the treatment of Nymphaceae, pp. 51-3.

I cannot think that it is absolutely extinct in Egypt.

In Harvey's genera should find a place with reduced to it.

See Harvey (1868), p. 372; see also M to J. Hooker, 1 December 1871 (in this edition as 71-12-01c).

What is ? I do not find it in Dr Masters valuable enumeration in the L.S. transactions.

Masters (1871). P. bonapartia is not in IPNI (accessed 29 October 2019), but is mentioned in Keane (1849?), pp. 79, 83, and is included in W. Hill (1875), p. 68, without an author or locality being listed.

You will soon get the large stem.

See M to J. Hooker, 20 May 1872.

Always with best wishes for you

Ferd von Mueller

Annotated below the signature in an unknown hand: Thank for " Select Plants ".