The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 1/8/1890 ¶ ¶ Could you kindly refer me, dear Col. Ellery, to a notice of a measurement of a Giant Eucalypt, instituted many years ago by the late Professor Wilson. ¶ M was evidently updating the text...

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Physical location:

Unit 6, VPRS 780,inward correspondence Melbourne Observatory,Public Record Office, Victoria. 90.08.01a

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Robert Ellery, 1890-08-01 [90.08.01a]. 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/1890-6/1890/90-08-01a-final.odt>, accessed June 13, 2026

1/8/1890

Could you kindly refer me, dear Col. Ellery, to a notice of a measurement of a Giant Eucalypt, instituted many years ago by the late Professor Wilson.

M was evidently updating the text of his Select extra-tropical plants. In the 1891 edition (B91.09.01) the following passage appears under Eucalyptus amygdalina:

Prof. Wilson and Colonel Ellery obtained at Mount Sabine a measurement of 21 feet 8 inches in diameter of a stem, where cut, the length being 380 feet. Colonel Ellery had repeatedly reports of trees seven axe-handles in diameter, and he met a tree on Mount Disappointment with a stem diameter of 33 feet at about 4 feet from the ground.

That information is not included in the previous edition, B88.12.01. A printed source for the information is not given by M, but some data for a tree measured at Mt Sabine appears in Abbay (1877), reprinted in Australasian (Melbourne), 20 April 1878, pp. 505-6; however the diameter of the trunk where cut is given as '15ft 3 in', and the log as '375-378', although some had been broken off the top. It is possible that Ellery checked when M asked: his geodetic surveyors were in the Otway ranges in 1865 (Australian n ews for h ome r eaders, 25 November 1865, p. 3) and the data may have been collected then.

The Eucalyptus, concerning which we had much foolish overstatement from Mr Boyle,

David Boyle. See his letter to the Editor, 'The largest tree in the world', Argus, 18 January 1889, p. 9, and the debunking of his case by 'Telemachus' in 'Our tall trees shortened', Argus, 22 May 1889, p. 6, to which M to the Editor of the Argus, 23 May 1889 (B89.05.01) is a response. See also Mace (1996).

has never been [seen] by me, though he connected my name with it. Mr Howitt had reliable data of one, exceeding some 400 feet, and that would likely be the maximum height; but even such trees do not exist any longer in our forests, as they gradually succumbed under the woodsmans axe, just as it has been the case some species of the Giant Pines of the United States. I never made myself responsible about any heights of eucalypts beyond 400 feet.

Regardfully

your

F. von Mueller

Eucalyptus