Ferdinand von Mueller

MS attached to the sheet containing a specimen of Darwinia luehmannii (MEL 68281). An Elder Exploring Expedition specimen label bears the date 2 November 1891, ’85 miles n.e x e from Esperance Bay’, and identifies the specimen as ‘Darwinia aff virescens’. M’s herbarium label identifies the collector as Richard Helms but in the published description by M and R. Tate (B96.14.02), the collection is attributed to P. A. Gwynne, an assistant on the Elder Expedition.

The MS appears to be a note from M to Luehmann written during the working up of the botanical results of the Elder Expedition, and detailed notes and drawings, apparently by Luehmann, comparing this putative new species with Darwinia meissneri and D. virescens, are also attached to the sheet. In the published description, M and Tate state that ‘The species has been dedicated to Mr. G. Luehmann … who in the preliminary examination of the Helms-collection has on many occasions given valuable aid’.

M and Tate began working up the botanical results of the Elder Expedition in 1892; see B93.14.08, read by Tate to the Royal Society of SA in December 1892. Their definitive account, including a description of the new Darwinia, was expected to be published in the next part of vol. 16 of the Society’s Transactions following that published in June 1893, but the Society ran into financial difficulties and the issue did not appear until 1896 (see B96.14.02). In the meantime, M and Tate did some further work on the collection; see Tate to M, 12 November 1895 (in this edition as 95-11-12a). Hence M’s note to Luehmann could have been written at any time between 1892 and March or April 1896. It is dated to 1892 as the earliest it could have been written.