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79.11.23d

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to the Editor of the West Australian, 1879-11-23 [79.11.23d]. 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/1870-9/1879/79-11-23d-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

1
Letter not found. The text given here is from 'The poison plant', West Australian (Perth), 16 December 1879, p. 2 (B79.12.02). The text is introduced by: ‘We have received the following communication from Baron von Mueller:’
Allow me to ask you, whether a bag full of the York-road poison-bush (gastrolobium calycinum) could be carefully dried for me, at a place, and in a season when it proves very destructive to herds and flocks. I am eager to submit the plant to exact chemical tests, in order to isolate the poison principle for phgsiologic
2
Typesetter's error for physiologic?
exact experiments. I have made a few observations on the gastrolobium nilobum
3
Typesetter's error for Gastrolobium bilobum?
from King George’s Sound, but the quantity of material on which I operated was too small for practical purposes, and I am not quite sure whether the poisonous principle may not be volatile.
The dried poison plants, before sent to me, might be tried on some old sheep, so that I may be certain that it is not inert material on which I work.
Melbourne, Nov. 23, 1879.
4
The letter is followed by:
We hope that some of our readers will take this up, and prepare a bag of poison plant as the Baron directs. If sent to our office, we will arrange for it to be forwarded to the Baron at Melbourne.—Ed. W.A.