Document information

Physical location:

Ellwood Cooper file, Gledhill Library, Santa Barbara Historical Museum, California, USA. 83.09.02

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Ellwood Cooper, 1883-09-02. 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/1880-9/1883/83-09-02-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

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MS envelope obverse: ‘ ON HER MAJESTY’S SERVICE . | via San Francisco . | Capt Ellwood Cooper &c | Santa Barbara, California | Government Botanist , | Melbourne , 12/6 188 3’. Postmarks: ‘MELBOURNE | 11 0 | JE 12 | 83’, ‘VICTORIA’. MS annotation: ‘Letters answered | June 12 | Aug 7 | Sep 2’. MS envelope reverse: ‘SAN FRANCISCO PAID ALL | JUL 9’, ‘SANTA BARBARA CA | […] | […]’.
MS envelope contains a printed label from the Melbourne Herbarium: ‘ PHYTOLOGIC MUSEUM OF MELBOURNE. | BARON FERD. VON MUELLER, PH. & M.D. ’
2/9/83.
By the mail-steamer, which is to leave Sydney for San Francisco this week, dear Captain Cooper, you will receive a case with several stems of tree-ferns (
Dicksonia Billardierii

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Dicksonia billardierei ?
) and a trunc of
Todea barbara

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for your Lady’s fernery. The freight is paid as far as San Francisco, and I write by this post also to Mr Eugene Cooper,
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Letter not found.
requesting him, to see to the transshipment of the case to you. These ferns are fresh taken out of the ground, and there should be no difficulty of starting them into foliage again, if they are at once after arrival put into the ground, provided with plenty of rich forest soil and regularly watered once a day.
I have no seeds of
Eucalyptus citriodora

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just at hand, but will let you have some, so soon as any ripen again.
Trusting that all your anxieties about your estate will be soon overcome, and wishing you and your florishing family health andhappiness I remain regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.
I have also sent two parcels of miscellaneous seeds to you, but by post. Among these some may prove acceptable acquisitions.