The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: ¶ So far as I can judge from the bleached and partly decayed state of the specimens sent by you, the matted algic substance occurring in fresh water at Hobart Town is either Agardh's ¶ Conferva bomb...

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Physical location:

77.04.00

Plant names

Cladophora
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Conferva Sandvicensis
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Conferva bombycina
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Conferva floccosa
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Oedogonium
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to William Spicer, 1877-04. 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/1870-9/1877/77-04-00-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

Letter not found. The text given here (B78.06.10) is from Spicer (1878a), p. 61. It is dated to 1877 on the assumption that M was asked for his view when Spicer was drafting his paper for the Royal Society of Tasmania, read at the Monthly Meeting of the Royal Society of Tasmania on 10 April 1877, but there is no indication in his text of when the specimens were sent to M.

In his paper, Spicer wrote (p. 60): Two species are common in Great Britain and are (I believe), universally distributed throughout Europe, viz:— and , both determined by the great Swedish Algologist Agardh. It is to one of these, as we have seen by his letter, that Baron von Mueller is inclined to refer our specimen. … The followiing is the letter from Baron von Müeller alluded to in the above paper:—'.

So far as I can judge from the bleached and partly decayed state of the specimens sent by you, the matted algic substance occurring in fresh water at Hobart Town is either Agardh's or a species allied to it. The cells or joints are almost double the size of those of C. bombycina in its ordinary state, but I possess Danish specimens quite as large. The discovery of C. bombycina would not come suprisingly in Australia, as I have shown many years ago the likewise widely distributed C. floccosa to occur in fresh waters near Adelaide.

Sonder (1852), p. 658 lists the species, noting that M's specimen was dated 1848, collected from streams near Kensington [SA].

The limits of allied species are not well defined in reference to cell contents; nor do your specimens admit of close examination in that respect. Your conferva is evidently also nearly allied to C. Sandvicensis of Gaudichaud. The internal organisation of the cell serves probably better for distinction than the size and form of the cell walls, which I found always very variable, as might be expected from the varied circumstances under which such kind of plants occur; whether temperature, or depth, or pureness of water is concerned.

Possibly among the matted masses sent by you may be remnants of a and also sterile portions of an .

I have found here occasionally enormous sheets of similar constitution to what you sent, in swamps; these masses in dry seasons, after the evaporation of all water, would cover the bottoms of lagoons with a thick felt, so much so that I could obtain it by cartloads, finding the substance excellent for being converted into the best of filtering paper.

FERD. VON MUELLER.