The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 18/10/88 ¶ ¶ It is delightful to contemplate, dear Prof Tate, that you will have the means of early bringing out a volume on the plants of the S.A. territory. What an enormous gain ¶ such ¶ a work ...

Document information

Physical location:

Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide, SA. 88.10.18

Plant names

Cassinia punctulata
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Choripetaleae
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Imperata
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Spergula pentandra
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Xanthorrhoea tateana
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Ralph Tate, 1888-10-18. 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/1880-9/1888/88-10-18-final.odt>, accessed June 5, 2026

18/10/88

It is delightful to contemplate, dear Prof Tate, that you will have the means of early bringing out a volume on the plants of the S.A. territory. What an enormous gain such a work will be for educational purposes and for intellectual recreation!

The planned work became Tate (1890).

I presume, your treating the subject will be somewhat like Prof Babingtons or Sir J. Hookers of the British Flora,

Presumably Babington (1843); J. Hooker (1884), or other editions.

or like the "native plants" of Victoria, of which latter you will have the only part, which appeared, that of the hypogynae

B79.06.04.

Now with the help of the Key,

B88.11.02.

the work can be easily completed.

I am glad, that can now be settled by us conjointly.

See M to R. Tate, 7 October 1888.

You might give a preliminary note of it at your R.S.

Royal Society.

With the just concluding of the Select pl.,

B88.12.01.

and the Key, and the Extrawork for the Medical Congress

M was president of the Therapeutics section of the Intercolonial Medical Congress, Melbourne, January 1889.

before me, I shall find it difficult, to collect my thoughts until the Exhibition

Centennial International Exhibition, Melbourne, 1888-9.

is over for any connected descriptive work, as I like to bring all or most arrears up in any genus, if I have to elucidate some novelty. Still, if you like it better, I will draw up a mere diagnosis of the .

As regards several msc. names for it kindly remember,

1, that I have to name plants for correspondents often by the midnight -lamp, when I am tired from the days routine-work and eyes get dim!

2, that frequently the material sent by correspondents is so small and defective, that I am apt to fail recognizing any critical spec.

3, that I have no leisure, when naming specimens hurriedly for correspondents, to refer to the herbarium, therefore must trust to memory, which in a sexagenarian may occasionally be treacherous.

You stand in a proud position in working progressively in three sciences. It shall be arranged in my Museum, that every week some plants are picked out for you, so that each week a parcel can go by post to you. I have only 2 people in the Museum, who have of course duties daily, among which that of keeping 600,000 sheets of plants free from insects is not the least. In so large a collection it takes also up much more time, to find out any particular species than in a smaller herbarium. Mr Bailey has also just sent a list of QL.

Qld. Bailey left a list of desiderata with M's assistant; see F. Bailey to M, August 1888 (in this edition as 88-08-00). F. Bailey to M, 13 October 1888, known only from a brief entry in Bailey's letterbook, may have also been a renewed request.

plants, which he has never yet seen. From the bot Garden of Adelaide he received a great many, sent by me to the Exhib.

Jubilee International Exhibition, Adelaide, 1887.

from Lt. Dittrichs collecting at the W. boundary of QL.

Hermann Dittrich collected when he was with David Lindsay on an exploration of eastern NT and western Qld, 1885-6.

used in the 40-er years to be common at the sandhills near the reedbeds betw. Pt Adelaide and your city

Regardfully your

Ferd von Mueller

It seems that Xanthorrh Tateana is Victorian also at Bordertown,

SA. M had described in B85.07.01, p. 294.

but I am not yet sure

The introduced plant at Castlemaine

Vic.

is L. Did you never find it in S.A. yet