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Physical location:

76.00.00c

Preferred Citation:

Alfred Giles to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1876 [76.00.00c]. 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/1870-9/1876/76-00-00c-final.odt>, accessed June 9, 2026

1
Letter not found. The text given here is from "A thousand cattle poisoned', Register (Adelaide), 7 November 1923, p. 11. The article is under the by-line of Alfred Giles and was written in response to an account in another paper of the loss of 1,000 cattle at Taylor's Well, between Barrow Creek and Tennant Creek in NT, that ended with the assertion that 'residents suggest an early investigation by an experienced botanist of the vegetation in the locality'. Giles points out that the bush causing the devastation was Gastrolobium grandiflorum. Giles recounted his own experience in the area in 1874 when he lost overnight more than 600 sheep of a flock of 5,000 sheep on a drove from Beltana, SA. He goes on to say:
[On my next trip a year or so later
2
The letter is dated to 1876 on the basis of 'a year or so later'. Alfred Giles's dated specimens at MEL are between 1886 and 1895, which would not fit with the time period indicated, but there are 34 without a date. The date 1876 is therefore tentative, suggested as a possible date consistent with the text of the letter, which however was written more than 45 years after the events being described.
with another 5,000 sheep, we camped at a safe distance from the suspected spot, and … cleared a space, some hundred yards wide right through the narrowest part of the poison belt and strung the sheep through without any loss; It was on this occasion that I made a collection of 30 or 40 plants along the route, and forwarded them to the late Baron von Mueller, asking him to send me back samples of any that were poisonous to stock, and he sent me, later on, the gastrolobium and Euphorbia.
3
Earlier in the article Euphorbia drummondii is mentioned.
From that time on I was constantly in correspondence with the Baron, and I had all I could do to supply his voracious demand for plants, and I was pleased to hear that I had sent him several plants entirely new to botanists.
4
Including Bauhinia gilesii named by M in B82.07.04.
Following this extract the source article gives several other occurrences of stock poisoning in the Northern Territory.
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Euphorbia
Gastrolobium