Ferdinand von Mueller

1

MS found with a specimen of Eucalyptus delegatensis subsp. tasmaniensis (MEL 100073). MS annotation by M: 'Answ 12/4/81'. Letter not found.

Hobart

2nd April 1881

My dear Baron

I should not have troubled you again so soon, knowing how your time is occupied, but that there appears to be some misunderstanding about one of the specimens of Eucalyptus which I sent over last February. Perhaps my label has been misplaced; but if that which I sent as gum topped Stringy Bark from Lake Sorell is to be identified with E. Sieberi or Sieberiana — the Iron bark of the East Coast — then I give up all hope of ever coming to any satisfactory diagnosis of species.

2

See T. Stephens to M, 21 February 1881 (in this edition as 81-02-21a), on which M identified the Gum topped Stringy Bark as Eucalyptus haemastoma.

The latter has a deeply furrowed, hard, nearly black bark quite unlike any other gum tree in Tasmania, and up to a height of 2000 ft or more there is no alteration in its appearance. I have not seen it higher.

The former, from Lake Sorell, is in the lower part of the stem exactly like the common stringy bark, but if anything rather less furrowed, the bark being quite loosely fibrous, and easily rubbed into what bushmen call "bulls' wool".

I have at last secured a specimen of the brown stringy bark in flower, which I will forward for your comparison when you are more at leisure. It is just possible that I may be in Melbourne for a day or two about Easter.

I will not forget your wishes about fungi when opportunity serves.