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Physical location:

87.09.00f

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to the Gardeners' Chronicle, 1887-09 [87.09.00f]. 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/1880-9/1887/87-09-00f-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

1
Letter not found. The text given here is from '
Telopea oreades

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', 'Gardeners' chronicle , 22 October 1887, p. 496 (B87.10.01). It is dated to early September as the latest likely date that it could have been sent to have been included in this issue.
Eastern Gippsland, "the Australian Switzerland," is the home of this magnificent plant, where it attains occasionally a height of 40 feet, and being usually arborescent is unlike its compeer, T. speciosissima, which seems always of shrubby growth, though it becomes sometimes rather tall also. What gives the Victorian Waratah a special horticultural interest — in which, however, to some extent, the Tasmanian one, T. truncata, also shares — is the hardiness of the species. Suppose that in the lowlands of Britain, in sheltered positions, our Waratah could be grown in the open air! What a picture — Himalayan
Rhododendron

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s, Palm-like
Dracophyllum

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s, and
Richea

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s from Tasmania, and this gorgeous Telopea grouped together scenically with a sheltering background of verdure, and kept moist by some brooklet springing out of artificial rocks!
The Victorian Waratah is specifically quite distinct from its Tasmanian congener, both of which I have studied in their native haunts. It is restricted to elevations between 3000 and 4000 feet, as far as I am as yet aware; tracks into this tourists' paradise here having only recently been cut by Mr. Merrah
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Typesettter’s error for Merrall?
for mining exploration.
When, in 1860, I first entered this subalpine country (only now explored throughout by the gentleman named), and then saw the Victorian Telopea in all its glory, it reminded me of the Oreades of ancient mythology, as their emblems in the vegetable world.
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B61.11.04, pp. 170-1.
This Telopea and Crinum flaccidum are the two plants which bear the largest flowers in the native vegetation of this colony.
Baron Sir F. v. Mueller.