The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: Private ¶ 18/9/79. ¶ ¶ In looking more closely through vol XIII part II of the transactions of the Bot. Society of Edinburgh, dear Prof. Balfour, and admiring your excellent essay on Halophila, ¶ I ...

Document information

Physical location:

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, I. B. Balfour correspondence. 79.09.18d

Plant names

Amaryllideae
Search for Amaryllideae in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Eucalyptus Planchoniana
Search for Eucalyptus Planchoniana in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Eucalyptus siderophloia
Search for Eucalyptus siderophloia in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Halophila
Search for Halophila in
Hydrocharideae
Search for Hydrocharideae in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Liliaceae
Search for Liliaceae in
Najadeae
Search for Najadeae in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Bayley Balfour, 1879-09-18 [79.09.18d]. 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/1870-9/1879/79-09-18d-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

Private

18/9/79.

In looking more closely through vol XIII part II of the transactions of the Bot. Society of Edinburgh, dear Prof. Balfour, and admiring your excellent essay on ,

J. Balfour (1879).

I came across a reprint of a South Australian parliamentary report on Eucalypts.

R. Schomburgk laid a report before the South Australian Parliament in early 1878. It was reproduced as 'South Australian "Eucalypts"', in South Australian register, 11 February 1878, p. 6.

How this document could ever have got access to any scientific journal is an enigma to me, as its data are mostly crude and some incorrect. I have said something about this in the 4th Decade of my Eucalyptus Atlas, under E. Planchoniana.

In B79.13.11, decade 4, second page of letterpress under Eucalyptus planchoniana, M wrote

a document, presented not very long ago to Parliament in a neighbouring colony and reproduced in the Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, vol xiii pag. lxv-lxvi [i.e. 1879, in 'Proceedings of the Botanical Society. Session XLII'] … would lead to the [misleading] impression [that only three species of Eucalyptus ] furnish wood vinegar … and tar.

Of any acknowledgement of the sources, from whence that information which is worth having, did really come, could be not thought

Schomburgk did not cite any sources for his information.

However this must remain " entre nous ", but you may have means to exercise through your worthy father or by others some censorship over future communications of these kinds. E. siderophloia does not at all occur in S. Australia. That acetic acid, tar, woodspirit &c are obtainable from any kind of wood is well known (i.e. by dry distillation), so bark-paper material, all of which I furnished for the Exhibition of Paris in 1867

Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1867. See M to H. Manners-Sutton, 23 November 1866, and B67.13.08, pp. 243-50.

from many kinds of Bark, some Eucalypts included.

In the second half of this paragraph M is explicitly rebutting claims in Schomburgk's report.

If you wrote to the India-office, you might, if you cared, get a copy of my Indian Edition of the "select plants"

B80.13.07.

brought out in Calcutta on Expense of the Government. It is an enlarged & revised edition. I think we must keep apart from just as much as from , though is in some respects intermediate.

Regardfully

Ferd. von Mueller