Ferdinand von Mueller

Melbourne, 20/11/84

1

Annotated in ?W. Thiselton-Dyer's hand: Thanked Jany 12. 85. Letter not found.

To Sir Jos. Hooker, Director of the Royal botanic Garden of Kew near London

A wish was recently expressed by you and Mr Dyer, dear Sir Joseph, to possess a growing plant of

Tmesipteris Tannensis

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for one of the Kew-Conservatories. Accordingly a plant had just been cut from a fernstem in the ranges, and the bearer of these lines, Mr Hirsch, a Merchant of this city, had kindly taken it for Kew in the mailsteamer leaving this day.

2

On 8 January 1885 (in error as 1884 on MS) ,Albert Hirsch wrote from De Keyser’s Royal Hotel, Victoria Embankment, London, to Hooker:

Dear Sir Joseph,

I have the honor to enclose a letter from Baron von Mueller to you by which you will see, that he has entrusted to me the transport of a valuable Australian specimen which I am happy to inform you is in good condition & in my hands at the present moment.

The shortness of my stay in London will, I am sorry to say, debar me from the pleasure of delivering the specimen to you personally, if you will therefore kindly send for it at your earliest convenience it will escape the chance of perishing from the cold.

On my return to London a few months hence, I shall not fail to call upon you & enquire after the welfare of my old companion, the plant.

I have the honor to remain,

dear Sir Joseph

very faithfully yours

Albert Hirsch

(RBG Kew, Kew Correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1882-90, f. 129). The letter is annotated in ?W. Thiselton-Dyer’s hand: Thanked Jany 1[2]/85.

Tmesipteris is exclusively an inhabitant of caudices of arborescent ferns, and this plant would therefore require to be tied to the living stem of one of your ferntrees, best Dicksonia Billardier[e]i.