Ferdinand von Mueller

Letter not found. The text given here is from G. Andersson (1896), pp. 21-2; the associated footnote at the end of the passage reads: 'Die Verbreitung in Australien nach brieflicher Mitteilung des Herrn Baron F. v. Mueller in Melbourne an Herrn Prof. A. G. Nathorst ' [The Australian distribution from a letter from Baron F. v. Mueller in Melbourne to Prof A. G. Nathorst]. The article concerns the world-wide distribution of extant Brasenia purpurea ; Andersson goes on to list and discuss the fossil distribution and the attribution of the fossils to this genus.

The letter is dated to 1892 as the earliest likely date that it would have been written based on the comment in Andersson's text that:

Seit 1892, wo ich Klinge bes uch te, habe ich mic h hi n und wieder mit diesen Samen besc häftigt. Seitdem das hiesige paläophytologisc h e Museum durc h die Bem ühung en des Direktors Herrn Prof. A. G . Nathorst ein brauc h bares Ver g leic h smaterial von Brasenia a us Amerika, Australien und Japan bekommen h atte, ü berzeugte ich mich mehr und mehr davon, dass nur se h r unbedeutende Rassenunterschiede zwi sc h en den Samen der lebenden und der fossilen Pflanze beste h en.

[Since 1892, when I visited Klinge, I have been busy with these seeds now and then. Since then, the local Paleophytological Museum through the efforts of the director Prof. A. G. Nathorst received useful reference material of Brasenia from America, Australia and Japan, and I convinced myself more and more of the fact that there are only very insignificant racial differences between the seeds of the living and the fossil plant.]

The letter may however have been written some years later.