Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M3, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 84.12.08a

Preferred Citation:

Joseph Hooker to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1884-12-08 [84.12.08a]. 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/1880-9/1884/84-12-08a-final.odt>, accessed June 13, 2026

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MS annotation by M: 'Answ. 5/2/85 FvM'. Letter not found.
Dec 8 /84
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MS embossed with crest of Royal Gardens Kew.
My dear Baron
If I do not answer a letter at once I do not know when I may! so I break off my work at Alternanthera nodiflora & A sessilis to thank you for your just opened, & read, of 23/10/84
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M to J. Hooker, 23 October 1884.
& its most interesting enclosures from Dr Scortechini ! — (What a name for an Italian ! ).
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The words 'Scortechini' and 'Italian' have been underlined and a large exclamation mark pencilled in the margin against this section. In Italian, the verb scortecciare means to strip the bark off!
— I need hardly say I shall be delighted to see him & give him all assistance here, & shall urge his publishing his new species with all despatch. I shall indeed be only too glad of his help in that way. As to subsidies, that we must attack Sr H. Lowe
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Sir Hugh Low.
for — He has returned already I believe.
With your letter came a very interesting one from Consul Sandwich of Crete to whom I had written about the Evergreen Plant that Pliny mentions
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Natural History, book 12 v. 11: ‘est Gortynae in insula Creta iuxta fintem platanus una insignis utriusque linguae monimentis, numquam folia dimittens’. [There is a single plane-tree at the side of a spring at Gortyn in the island of Crete which is celebrated in records written both in Greek and Latin, as never shedding its leaves.] The Evergreen plane, described in 1908 as the species Platanus cretica, has since also been treated as a variety, P. orientalis var cretica.
& of which he sends me leaves & fruit, the latter differing considerably from the common P. orientalis .
We are busy at the Herbarium about getting up a Catalogue of Chinese plants by Mr Forbes
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Francis Blackwell Forbes. The first part of F. Forbes & Hemsley (1886-1888) was issued on 20 May 1886 (TL2).
who has spent some years there (not the Timor laut & N. Guinea man
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Henry Ogg Forbes; for Timor-laut (now Kepulauan Tanimbar, Indonesia) see H. Forbes (1885), pp. 307 ff.
) — a merchant, & for which we have a small grant from the R.S.
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Royal Society.
It will be most useful.
I am printing Labiatae of Flora B. I.
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J. Hooker (1875-97).
& preparing Amaranthaceae for press, but I am so distracted with Councils & Committees, official & unofficial, in London, that what with these & Garden work, & my family duties, I am hard pressed to get on.
Ever most sincerely your
J D Hooker
I have two parcels of plants to thank you for[.] Oliver is busy with them.
Alternanthera nodiflora
Alternanthera sessilis
Amaranthaceae
Labiatae
Platanus orientalis