Ferdinand von Mueller

Corona Station

1

In the Barrier Range, north of present-day Broken Hill, NSW.

Septr 30th /89.

Baron von Mueller.

Dear Sir

By this mail I am sending you a box of plants. My last from here I fancy as I start on my homeward journey this day week. I would be glad to know if you receive the box — so please address a line to me at the Silverton Post Office. I can call there for it. here it would arrive some time after I had left. On my arrival in Melbourne I should much like to see you — so would call at the Botanic Museum if I knew your hours. please name them — I am anxious to know if you care for any of the things I have sent. One value they have, many of them have not been seen for years, and Mr. Kennedy who knows this country so well, told me it might be ten years before the like showed themselves again. When I come in with arms full of things my son always says, "if you had been here this time last year you would not have found a green leaf" so I have been most fortunate in the time of my visit. I fear from what Mr. French

2

Probably Charles French Snr, who was M's Assistant in the herbarium.

said that my box of lovely everlastings reached you in very bad condition — I received one box myself crushed flat. I am sorry, for I packed them most carefully — and wished you to see all their beauty. I have collected a lot for seed this afternoon but fear they are not quite ripe — so will get some the day before I leave. I almost doubt their growing away from their own rocky hill tops — great branches grow out of a little split in a rock, where you would hardly think they could find root hold — there are some seeds of all the different kinds — all bleach white as they get ripe. I am sending a bit of three or four different kinds of acacia — may be something new to you. I fear not. Have you decided about the holly plant ? is it any thing new? — With the £10 you gave me for my Western Australian flowers I bought Block 10 shares at 32/- each, they are now £5-5- so I was lucky — Should I find any thing more worth sending you shall have it.