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RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1871-181, ff. 119-20. 73.11.05a

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Joseph Hooker, 1873-11-05 [73.11.05a]. 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/1870-9/1873/73-11-05a-final.odt>, accessed June 5, 2026

Melbourne
5/11/73.
I thought to have been able, dear Dr Hooker, to have sent you some prints by this mail, but a short essay on plants of the New Hebrides, containing 4 or 5 new species, it
1
but deleted before it.
not yet quite through the press.
2
B73.13.01.
A short memoir on fossils is also printed, but not yet issued.
3
B73.11.01.
I have done a little to the
Glumaceae

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lately, particularly Gramineae. We have, I see,
Eleusine Indica

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and
Eleusine verticillata

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. R Br's E. radulans is only E. cruciata. This research requires great care.
It is very strange that most people here, indeed almost all of them, say or think that the duties of a Governm. Botanist are merely to work on dry plants in a Museum!!, yet I assure you, they have not the slightest hesitation in asking though I have in most cases no longer means for the purpose
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though … purpose is a marginal note with its intended position marked by an asterisk.
services in phytochemistry, in medical phytology, pathology of plants, in regard to vegetable technology, new resources, new exports, new introductions, supplies, test culture, indeed on anything from the fungi of a diptheritic membrane or of the cholera stools to the most aesthetic subjects of gorgeous culture. Of course you are Gov Botanist of England and Botanist to the British Government like your venerable father through and in virtue of your position of Director of the bot Garden of Kew. You know best that
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You know best that interlined.
Without the organisation, the staff, the votes, the appliances of Kew Garden you could not perform your duties of Gov Botanist. The extent of my ruin as Departmental Chief is not less than I anticipated, after I feel now since 4 months how it is impossible for me to do any longer real good to the community.
In private life Mr Bentham may limit his researches in accordance with his inclination. But it is very different in deed, when the responsible duties in all direction toward large communities, are devolving officially on us! And these duties in a young country like this colony are more responsible than anywhere.
Mr Bentham will not require, so I learn, the
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Junceae

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,
Glumaceae

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&c before Easter.
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See G. Bentham to M, 24 September 1873.
So I hope to render his work easy by elaborating the rest of them beforehand. I suppose that the
Irideae

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&
Haemodoraceae

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are on the way back. As yet I have no bill of loading concerning them, but the
Orchideae

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have safely come back.
I learn from a relation of Dr Wyville Thomson, that the Challenger
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An oceanographic research voyage in Challenger took place, under the command of Capt. George Nares, from December 1872 to May 1876. Sir Charles Wyville Thomson supervised the scientific staff.
will also come to Melbourne, contrary to the first program. I shall gladly do what is still within my means to aid the scientific men of the expedition, but I feel most deeply & most thoroughly the difference of my position, since I can no longer receive them or aid them as Director of the bot. Garden. I have no longer a real Department with proper votes and am thus helpless or nearly so, as all my private means are now gone also.
I hope to send you by next mail an other, but only a small, number of the fragmenta. At Rockingham's Bay Mr Hill has found now also
Musa uranoscopos

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8
Musa uranoscopus?
or some other erect flowering Banana. The ascent of Mount Bellenden Ker, urged by me since 10 years, is now at last to be accomplished.
Always with regardful remembrance your
Ferd.von Mueller.