Ferdinand von Mueller

1

The letter is dated to early January 1890, based on M to T. Bride, 19 February 1890 (in this edition as 90-02-19b), in which M reports having received it 'by last mail'.

The Camp.

Sunningdale.

2

Text begins mid-sentence at top of a black-edged sheet with printed letterhead that is surrounded by the writing.

[…]

3

An unknown amount of text missing.

get it printed so as to sell at a reasonably cheap rate is the rub. With a publisher the prices will be prohibitive. There will be at least 3 vols quarto with 1600 pages each & 3 columns on a page, for there are upwards of 60,000 entries! & this only to the year 1885.

4

Hooker is discussing the Index Kewensis compiled by B. D. Jackson, the first edition of which was published by Oxford University Press in four volumes, 1893-5.

— I am now enquiring whether the Cambridge U. press would undertake it. — C. was Darwin's University,

5

Darwin had provided the funding that made compilation of the Index Kewensis possible.

& 3 of his sons are settled there, 2 as professors, but I doubt if they could afford it without help, & I am seeing what I could do by touting amongst wealthy patrons of Horticulture. Sr G. MacLeay has given me £300 to begin with. I suppose we must print at least 1500 copies, as the work will be wanted by both Botanists & Horticulturists. It gives the name, first authority, (book & page) & native country for every plant, and synonyms as far as possible — but the work must not be looked on as an authority for synonymy. You will find every published name &c., up to 1885, it professes no more. Of course established synonyms are entered as such & when possible referred to their proper species & this has as you may suppose given [enormous] trouble in the hundreds of cases where there are differences of opinion & where a plant has been referred to several Genera. All such cases are referred to Oliver & myself. In doing the Indian Orchids the work has been invaluable to me, how else could I have found all Reichenbach's species? published (like yours) in an infinity of periodicals.

I shall soon send you a sample page. Do you think you could get us any help towards publication in Australia? Oliver & I have devoted much time to it, of course gratuitously; so did John Ball, whose loss to Kew Herb. is deplorable.

6

Do you think … deplorable has been marked with double lines in the margin. Ball died on 21 October 1889.

As for myself I am very well but getting old! I am just finishing the Orchids of Fl. Brit. Ind, a most unsatisfactory job that has cost me upwards of 3 years labor. Reichenbach's work is detestable, he did not codify a single genus, & his descriptions of species are so incomplete that I often have not known in what section of a Genus to put his species. Had not Bentham done the Genera of the Order I do not know where we should be. In doing the Indian I am in admiration of Benthams treatment of the Genera,

7

In Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 3, pp. 460-636.

especially seeing what a confused jumble of published materials he had to deal with, & the badness of Herbarium specimens.

As for the rest, the "Fl. Brit Ind."

8

J. Hooker (1875-97).

& the "Bot. Mag"

9

Curtis's botanical magazine, which Hooker continued to edit until 1904.

take up all my time, except the Steudel

10

i.e. Index Kewensis, seen as a successor to Steudel's Nomenclator (1840).

— which I am revising after Jackson