The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 4/9/76 ¶ ¶ I have forwarded to you, dear Mr Bentham, or rather to Dr Hooker, by the ship "Agamemnon" two large Cases with Cyperaceae 10 weeks weeks ago. Altho' it seems inadvisable to send consignmen...

Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1871-81, ff. 181-3. 76.09.04

Plant names

Batis
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Cyperaceae
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Gramineae
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Halorageae
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Loganiaceae
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Plantagineae
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Victoria Regia
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1876-09-04. 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/1870-9/1876/76-09-04-final.odt>, accessed June 9, 2026

MS black edged — M's brother-in-law, Eduard Wehl, died on 11 February 1876.

4/9/76

I have forwarded to you, dear Mr Bentham, or rather to Dr Hooker, by the ship "Agamemnon" two large Cases with 10 weeks weeks ago. Altho' it seems inadvisable to send consignment after consignment, before the former sendings are even known to have arrived, I have still made arrangement to despatch also early the large collection of , and have for this purpose just sorted the last supplements. It will take you many months to do justice to the , if you intend to institute critical comparisons with the universal material at Kew, Boeckeler having had no access to that material, and he moreover having admitted far too many species.

Boeckeler (1868-77), or to the series of articles in Linnaea that were later consolidated (see TL2, title number 580).

There are now still the ferns to send, but I do not like to be so very long without working material here, as it is needed like at Kew for daily departmental work. Hence I shall not send the ferns, until I know that you have come well on with the .

I am still a discarded Director and a Gov Botanist out of the bot Garden! but a slight improvement by the voting of a small sum has been effected in my department, (if notwithstanding daily and very varied responsibilities it still can so be called); but the means will at best only reestablish the field-branch and perhaps lithographic branch; perhaps however office-rooms will be built for me; still I shall remain without living plants for new observations so needful in this clime , without real staff, without any laboratory and apparatus and without any approach to fair votes.

The debate on the vote for the Government Botanist’s Department on 23 August 1866 resulted in an increase of £410 over the previous year (Victoria Parliamentary debates, vol. 24, pp. 498-501).

The total of the four last years expenditure during my Directorship (including Laboratory work, Museum work, publications, extensive supplies of trees to churches, cemeteries, schools, public reserves, parks &c) was about £14000. Since I left, therefore in the last four finance years the expenditure ( without the above-mentioned obligations has been £64,000! I could finally not even keep down the weeds with the means at my commands, but of course it became important to increase threefold or fourfold the votes since I left, though neither science nor industries nor the country districts have since derived any more benefit from the bot. Garden, which indeed has no longer claims to that designation.

I have nothing done to deserve this downfall; I spent all my time, my means, my thoughts on the Department. I displayed taste and ornamentation by island, Geyserfountain, House, Palm House &c but I am a foreigner, and envey, jealousy and misrepresentations have followed me at every step since Sir Henry Barkly left particularly and finally I was sacrificed to nepotism.

See Maroske & Cohn (1996).

I hope the will also safely arrive. Suppose a mishap occurred, what a hiatus then in our collections here after my nearly 30 years toil in Australia and the sacrifice of a private fortune, for which I have neither here nor elsewhere any real thanks .

Regardfully

Ferd. von Mueller.

should be placed in . I place the next to . See the seeds!

Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 2, part 2, place between Asclepiadeae and Gentianeae, and after Labiatae. See Maroske (2006) for a discussion of M’s systematic arrangements.