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Physical location:

86.02.00a

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to the Gardeners' Chronicle, 1886-02 [86.02.00a]. 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/1880-9/1886/86-02-00a-final.odt>, accessed June 13, 2026

1
Letter not found. The text given here is from 'Myoporum insulare', Gardeners' chronicle , 17 April 1886, p. 492 (B86.04.01). It is dated to February as the latest likely date that it could have been sent to enable it, and the accompanying woodcut, to be prepared and published in this issue.
This with M. Sandvicense
2
M. sandwicense?
attains a height of 40 feet — Dr. Hildebrand, as he informs me, having seen the species of that height.
3
i.e. Hillebrand. Letter not found.
As thus M. insulare is one of the two largest Myoporineous plants in existence, it will be of interest to your readers to give an illustration of the tree.
4
Parenthetical insertion: ' (fig. 92, p. 493)'. The illustration is similar to a lateral reversal of the lithograph used as the frontispiece to B86.08.05, without the animal figures but with additional lower vegetation.
Mr. Bentham mixed up this species with M. serratum and M. viscosum,
5
Bentham (1863-78), vol. 5, pp. 4-5.
but it is very distinct from the two latter, as pointed out in the Fragmenta, vii., 110.
6
B70.12.03.
M. viscosum and M. insulare growing here in some places mixed without the slightest transitions, while M. serratum is confined to West Australia, being closely allied to M. oppositifolium. Thus in the Census a fair sequence is adopted accordingly for these species.
7
B84.03.06, p. 104.
I wrote to Mr. Carruthers,
8
M to W. Carruthers, 3 December 1885 (in this edition as 85-12-03a). There were no Myoporum specimens collected by Forster at the British Museum (Natural History); see W. Carruthers to M, 1 March 1886.
begging of him to ascertain whether Forster's M. crassifolium from Botanices insula could possibly be identical with M. insulare, and to try to find out where the "Botany Island" is.
9
Presumably G. Forster (1786a); see species 240, p. 44, where it is listed as from 'Botanices insula'.
Perhaps Forster meant Botany Bay.
10
A small islet near New Caledonia. See G. Forster (1777), vol. 2, p. 439, entry for 30 September 1774:
Captain Cook gave this little islet the name of Botany Island, because it contained in so small a space a flora of nearly thirty species, among which we saw several new ones. Its situation is nearly 22° 28' S. and 167° 16' E.
Of course Mr. Forster's name (probably from Solander) would take precedence, if the two were identical, which might be cleared up when the woodcut is published. A sample of the wood of M. insulare has been sent to the forthcoming Indian and Colonial Exhibition,
11
Colonial and Indian Exhibition, London, 1886.
along with many others, by me. For rural and technologic notes on Myoporum insulare, see Select Plants , American edition.
12
B84.13.22.
Ferd. von Müeller .
13
The editor has added a note beneath this text:
The species of Myoporum belonging to N[atural] O[rder] Myoporaceae have been specially studied by Baron von Mueller, whose work on the subject will be exhibited in the Colonial Exhibition. The species are found solely on the Australian continent and in New Zealand. They are mostly furnished with white flowers. M. parvifolium acuminatum and a few others were cultivated as greenhouse plants in this country in the times when New Holland plants found numerous admirers, and it comes as a surprise to find that some of the species form veritable trees, as in the one now figured. Ed.