Ferdinand von Mueller

7/3/85

In reply to your letter, dear Mr Worsnop,

1

Letter not found. Worsnop's inquiry was no doubt connected with the preparation of his work, 'The Historical Record of South Australia 1512-1854', the MS of which is in the State Archives of SA but which was never published.

I beg to inform you, that according to a brief record of Sir Joseph Hooker, the journeying of Mr Will. Baxter along some portions of the S. coast of Australia took place from 1823-1825 and again in 1829.

2

J. Hooker (1859), p. cxxiv.

This is proved by the specimens of his plants preserved in Sir Will Hooker's Herbarium. Dr Robert Brown described in 1830 several proteaceous plants from Mr Baxter's collections.

3

R. Brown (1830), passim.

To R. Sweet you refer already, as having described and figured a few of Mr B's plants. As Baxter went to ground, mostly explored before, he did not discover any very large number of new plants; thus not much notice was taken in later literature about his itinerations, so far as I am aware; hence I can afford you no further information on this subject.

If in your records you should wish to refer to my own work in S. Australia from 1847 til 1852, I will gladly write you some short notes on the subject myself; or you might show me the favor of submitting your own msc. notes, before they go to press.

I presume Mr W. Baxter, the Australian bot. collector, is the same as the former Curator of the Oxford bot. Garden, who died in 1871, and who wrote from 1834-1843 six octavo-volumes on British "phaenogamous Botany".

In Oxford probably additional information might be obtained

4

The Curator of the Botanic Garden, Oxford was William Baxter (1787-1871), who, on 15 January 1828, wrote from Oxford to Loudon’s Gardener’s magazine (vol. 3, 1828, pp. 490-91), when the other William Baxter (fl 1820s-1830s) was collecting in Australia.