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Gray Herbarium Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 85.09.08

Plant names

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Ferdinand von Mueller to Asa Gray, 1885-09-08. 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/1880-9/1885/85-09-08-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

8/9/85.
Again I have to thank you, dear Professor Gray, for spending some generous praise on one my works, this time what may be the last part of the Eucalyptography;
1
Gray provided a brief notice of Decade 10 of M's Eucalyptographia (B84.11.02) in the American journal of science, series 3, vol. 30, p. 83, published in July 1885. Gray paraphrases parts of the section 'Brief remarks at the conclusion of the main-work with its tenth decade', implying that M plans at least two more Decades. The 'generous praise' alluded to by M is the conclusion of the notice: 'The courage, perseverance, and public spirit of the author is much to be admired. What an immense amount of work he has already done for the Australian flora!'
— for altho' I have most plates ready for an other decade,
2
If plates had been printed, it is likely that they would have been included in Ewart (1910?). Ewart issued plates that had been prepared and printed for M's incomplete Plants indigenous to the colony of Victoria but not issued as part of either B62.03.03 or B62.05.06. Copies of a plate labelled E. stuartiana that was not drawn as part of that series were also found and included in Ewart's volume. This plate, drawn and lithographed by Robert Austen, differs substantially from the plate with the same label by Emil Todt included in Eucalyptographia, Decade 4. It is most unlikely that M would have had supplies of the plates of Eucalyptus angustissima, E. loxophleba and E. longicornis, all published in B79.13.10 but not in Eucalyptographia. Plates for all nineteen species illustrated in B79.13.10 were lithographed in London by J. N. Fitch, based on drawings made for M by Robert Austen or, for three plates of microscopic sections, by Ludwig Rummel. B79.13.10 was printed in London and plates were used in the stand-alone volume or incorporated into a larger report as B82.13.21.
I may not live to finish it, as my health is so vacillating. Had I continued in my garden to live and to be among my trees, also the Eucalyptography would have been a still ampler volume, altho I looked on Eucalypts in Conservatories and Herbariums since 1840, and on them in Australia since 1847.
By the end of this year I hope to issue 80 quarto-plates of
Myoporinae

Search for Myoporinae in

,
3
B86.08.05.
but the text will not appear in 1885,
4
No text to complement the plates was ever published.
as I am also so much engaged for the forthcoming great Colonial Exhibition in London officially.
5
Colonial and Indian Exhibition, London, 1886.
However the volume will be sent to you, so soon as it is out. Can I do for you anything particularly?
Let me hope, that you are happy and well.
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.