The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: Melbourne 19/8/74. ¶ ¶ My letters for Europe & India are just written and despatched, dear Mr Ramsay; so I hasten to get a few lines to post to day for you, as the Sydney Steamer leaves at noon. The ...

Document information

Physical location:

ML MSS.562, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. 74.08.19

Plant names

Areca
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Carex
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Cocos
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Cycas Normanbyana
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Cycas media
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Dicksonia
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Diospyros
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Goodenia
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Livistona Ramsayi
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Maba
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Musa
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Royenia villosa
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Edward Ramsay, 1874-08-19. 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/1870-9/1874/74-08-19-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

Melbourne 19/8/74.

My letters for Europe & India are just written and despatched, dear Mr Ramsay; so I hasten to get a few lines to post to day for you, as the Sydney Steamer leaves at noon. The Livistona-Palm, about which I telegraphed and which vernacularly might be distinguished as the "Ramsay's Shield-palm" or Parasol-palm" I have diagnosticised in the new number of the Fragmenta,

B74.08.01, pp 221-2.

and copies of that number have gone already by this post to Kew and a few other English scientific establishments I only trust, that the same species may not meanwhile also have been published by Wendland, who had my palms on loan; but I do not remember , that this was among them. I shall send you the print in a few days.

I shall go further into details concerning palms in one of the next numbers of the Fragmenta, and trust you will let me have timely all your species, if they can be procured again in the North.

I applied to Hill

Walter Hill.

for his & , but he evidently wishes to avoid sending them to me for correction or confirmation; for he replies, that he had sent them just on board of a ship for Kew. That is the support I get from him in my supposed Central position in Australia and as the local author; yet I invariably afford him information, altho' he has not in a single instance acknowledged it in his reports. I may therefore get the & (if such they be) from you before I am forestalled at Kew.

I have no desire to deprive Kew of anything, but as there in Kew Museum & in British Museum there since the last century

there since the last century is a marginal insertion, its position marked by an asterisk .

for many years past infinitely more material than ever can be worked up there, the Australian material after my great sacrifices might justly & fairly be left to my experience here. The Cycas fruits just sent by you are those of C. The ♀ rachis of C. media Normanbyana is stalkless & bears never more than 1 or 2 seeds, and the foliage is said to be curly It is very possible, that there are several more Cycas sp. yet to be defined.

Might it do any good you writing to Inspector Johnstone to send any material he may have to me. Some new species could be named after him. Surely he deserved to have one of the e called after him.

Many thanks for information on the trunk bearing s

I will early send all the numbers & plates of the Fragmenta still available

Regardfully yr

Ferd von Mueller

Mr Hill sent me last week for naming (of course he did not even know the natural order) Royenia

Royena ?

villosa L. a S. African climber as from the forests of Brisbane No fruit was sent, but young leaves & a few flowers, which seem to show no specific distinctions. In the absense of fruit I could not be definite in my judgment. What do you think of it. Is R. villosa cultivated in Sydney?, or is there really a new Royenia in Australia? It would not be very surprising, because a few species of & occur also in S Africa. It was pleasing to me to become at the Governors rooms here acquainted with the excellent Comm Goodenough,

Commodore James Goodenough.

who was not aware that the genus was named after his Grandfather the Bishop of Carlisle whose name I knew in my boyhood already as I found the rare Carices then in W. Schleswig which the Bishop had described in 1787.

I missed a glorious chance of going with Capt. Moresby in his second trip to N Guinea I never learnt he went again. Do you know whether further surveys there will go on and when the Challenger

The oceanographical research ship, HMS Challenger .

is likely to be there.

Regardfully yr

Ferd von Mueller

I like much to go there for a few months myself

Who is Charley after whom one was named.

charlioi was named in W. Hill (1874), p. 7, where the name is explained as honouring a member of the Native Police 'who was found very useful upon the expedition'; Hill had accompanied the Queensland North-East Coast Expedition from the end of September to the end of December 1873; see Dalrymple (1874). See also M to E. Ramsay, 24 July 1874 (in this edition as 74-07-24a).