Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. The text given here is from Ballarat courier, 9 November 1876, p. 2 (B76.11.04). M’s letter is introduced by: ‘A short time ago the City Council applied to the Sebastopol Borough Council to aid it in exterminating the Cape weed from the district. The town clerk accordingly wrote to Baron von Mueller for information on the subject, and has since received the following interesting reply:’

Melbourne, 3rd November, 1876.

John Wall, Esq.,

town clerk of Sebastopol.

Sir,—

In reply to your letter just received,

2

Letter not found.

I beg to observe that the so-called Cape weed (

Cryptootemma calendulareum

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3

Printer's error here and below for Cryptostemma calendulaceum?

) is not injurious in the ordinary sense to pasture animals, though I know of cases where sheep became overgorged by feeding after rains on this herb, when driven to it hungry from distant dry pastures, and then died. At Melbourne I used to allow cowkeepers to cut the plant, to clear it inexpensively away; and I never learnt of any injury arising to the cows from the herbage, which there, however, was usually in the stables mixed with other forage. The great objection to the cryptootemma is, however, that it suppresses more nutritious herbage, and occupies ground on which fattening grasses might grow; moreover, it passes away early in the spring, so that on its localities no fodder is available in the dry season. It invades, moreover, cultured ground readily. As it is an annual plant, it requires merely to be prevented from seeding, and becomes then subdued. I avail myself of this opportunity to contradict a statement which has repeatedly found its way, like so many other misrepresentations about me, into public print, that I introduced the cryptootemma. This statement was made to injure my position purposely in the eyes of my fellow-colonists, particularly the agriculturist. Now, when I spent my first spring in Australia (in 1848, at Adelaide) the plains were full of this herb. When I arrived (in the spring of 1852) in Victoria, I found the cryptootemma also in many places, already wild, at Melbourne. The late Dr Godfrey Howitt told several of his friends that the Cape weed got introduced years before I arrived in Victoria, and that it spread from the Flagstaff-hill after the unpacking there of some goods from the Cape of Good Hope. —

Baron Von Huegel, in his work published in 1837, says that he found the cryptootemma wild at Swan run in 1833.

4

Bentham (1837a), p. 67, where the locality is given as 'King Georges Sound'.