Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M67, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 91.02.18

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Walter Gill to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1891-02-18. 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/1890-6/1891/91-02-18-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

1
MS found with a specimen of Casuarina pauper (MEL 0540689).
MS annotation by M: 'Answ 28/2/91'. See M to W. Gill, 28 February 1891.
Adelaide 18/2/91
Baron Sir F. von Mueller
K.C.M.G. M. & Ph.D F.R.G.S. F.LS
Government Botanist
Melbourne
My dear Baron
Many thanks for your kind congratulations on my election as a Fellow of the Linnean Society.
2
M to W, Gill, February 1891 (in this edition as 91-02-00).
I send under separate cover a casuarina which is commonly called "Black Oak" and grows in parts of the Flinders Ranges
3
SA.
and on the plains near the foot of the Ranges. I do not think it can in any way be regarded as "C. glauca" or the "Bull oak" found in the South East near Bordertown and Wolseley,
4
Both SA, near the border with Victoria.
as that grows with a clean symetrical trunk for from 6 to 10 and even 20 feet ere it branches, and its 'cone' or, more correctly, its seed vessel, is shorter and much more flattened than the seed vessels now sent you, which grow on a much more stunted and generally useless kind of tree: indeed it is sometimes almost as small as a very large specimen of "casuarina dystila"
5
C. distyla?
from which it can, however, easily be known. The enclosed specimen has a wide range as I noticed it (and indeed saw it years ago) on my late trip to the North — up beyond Beltana between there and Leigh's Creek,
6
Leigh Creek, SA.
in the ranges. Your opinion will settle the question.
7
See M to W. Gill, 28 February 1891 (in this edition is 91-02-20b).
Kind regards
very faithfully yours
Walter Gill
PS. I send also all I could get near Hergott
8
Hergott's Springs, now Marree, SA.
of an acacia in the creek some miles off: the sections of the seed pod got broken off, but you will see how they join: I hope you will be able to make something out of it: but it is a poor specimen; all that the grasshoppers had left!
W. G.