Ferdinand von Mueller

1

MS found with a specimen of Isolepis fluitans (MEL 3681). Letter dated approximately on basis of Spence collections at MEL, all of which date from between 1882 and 1890. Firm dating on the basis of specimen numbers is difficult as Spence used the same number more than once within a given year. The specimen with which the letter was found is numbered 6, and is undated. All other specimens numbered 6 are dated, two in 1885, and one in each of 1886 and 1887. However, the only specimen numbered 7 is dated 1884, implying that there was at least one no. 6 that year.

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2

The pages are numbered 5 and 6; the preceding four pages of the MS are missing.

The more bulky specimens of the Lake plants I have packed in a little (50) cigar box along with the fossil fruits and papers of algae. The smaller specimens I will enclose with present letter — and of these

No1 with spike leaves in whorls I imagine to be of the

Hydrocharidae

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family — A better-class boy told me that it was in flower for a short time at a particular season of the year he thought about Christmas.

No 2 had a slender green stem like that of many land plants, but its leaves were of the colour & gelatinous consistency of brown seaweed

These two specimens were gathered at the end of last summer.

No 6 was gathered after the first rain — a floating grass which I fancied at the time might be a natural inhabitant of the water, but thought afterwards, was much more likely to be a land plant washed out by the lashing of the rising waters of the Lake. The specimen was however at the time otherwise interesting from a growth, whether of animal or vegetable formation, in the form of a nearly circular disk ¼ to 5 / 16 of an inch in diameter, binding together & including in its substance portions of three or four of the grass blades and seemed to me at least, singular, in having all round its edge a series of little straight sticks ranged at regular intervals round the edge of and at right angles to, the disk & projecting projecting

3

Word repeated in going from one page to next.

to equal distances both above and below it, giving the whole quite the appearance of a cogged wheel, or rather of a spiked wheel capable of driving two cogged wheels; one above, the other below. Unfortunately, however, having placed this specimen with others under a slight pressure nearly all these regular spikes got broken off & disappeared the remains of a few being only left at one end, and these may also disappear before the specimen reaches you.

The other Lake plants No 3 Blade and fruit of Sword-Sedge, No 4 Jointed Rush hollow stem divided by numerous transverse membranes — and No 5 specimens of ordinary Rush — are in little box with the fossil fruits, which I will take to Railway same time as I post this.

The fossil fruits I endeavoured to describe in former letter

4

Letter not found.

— The big but not handsome 'orange' I picked up myself. I would have sent two, but box would not quite close on it. The supposed tooth found in the stomach of a barracouta here, I send with the fruits It is much less fresh-coloured now, both in the bony substance & the veins tinged with blood. I told McKenzie that I thought it might be a Dugong's tooth as these animals are said to have 12 molars (& 2 incisors) fewer when old that when young — but on second thoughts this solution seemed rather improbable

Last letter my Cash a/c left me I think 15/ in your debt since then I have against you box which cost 6d & Railway freight which will be 8d leaving balance against me of 13/10d. This I thought of sending you as formerly proposed, but think it would be better to defer it till I learn more of No 2 Racecourse — & of a claim being [made] by a Chinese publican