Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M33, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 93.05.19a

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Walter Gill, 1893-05-19 [93.05.19a]. 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/1890-6/1893/93-05-19a-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

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MS is accompanied by an envelope: 'On Her Majesty's Service | Walt. Gill Esqr FLS., Conservator of Forests Adelaide | Government Botanist, Melbourne, 20/5/ 1893.' The front bears the frank stamp and crest of the CHIEF SECRETARY VICTORIA and a postal stamp 'MELBOURNE MY 20 93'. The back bears the postal stamp: 'G.P.O. ADELAIDE S.A. MY 22 93'. The front of the envelope is annotated: ‘Re E. marginata &
Acacia Osswaldi

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’.
19/5/93.
The Acacia, of which you just sent me a specimen, dear Mr Gill, is A. Osswaldi. It was spelled Oswaldi in the Flora, but I named it already 1848 in honor of Mr Ferd. Osswald, who brought me the first specimens from the Murray River, and who was a fellow-passenger of mine from Bremen to Australia in 1847.
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Bentham (1853), p. 609 rejected M's herbarium name, which he spelled A. Oswaldii, considering it a synonym of A. lanigera. However, the label in M's hand on the sheet from Bentham's herbarium, K 791293, has '
Acacia Osswaldi

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i Ferd Muell'. In the unpublished text of the treatment of Acacia in B63.13.06, p. 27 and in the description in B63.09.01, p. 5, where he cites B63.13.06, M used the spelling A. Oswaldii, which was then followed by Bentham (1863-78), vol. 2, p. 384 (published 1864). In his Systematic census, B83.03.04, p. 45, M used the spelling A. Osswaldi, citing B63.13.06, p. 27 (his dating of this to 1860 is suspect, as the final sheets were still being printed when he included the first two sheets in M to G. Bentham, 22 June 1863).
This species is remarkable for its orange-colored appendage to the seeds, just as A. salicina has it crimson. A. Osswaldi is nowhere yet in cultivation in Europe, so some seeds, if at any time hereafter easily accessible, would be valued.
Did you succeed well with the seeds of
Casuarina Decaisneana

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in your plants-nursery?
You named the Euc. largiflorens quite correctly. In vernacular language our colonists mean with "Boxtrees" nothing else than Eucalypts with persistent bark neither deeply furrowed nor very fibrous.
Always regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.
Euc. marginata has its natural home in a more humid climate than that about Spencers Gulf,
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SA.
where it would only thrive in moist soil; it is a forestral species, more fit for the Mt Lofty Gullies.
I would advise to call in a W.A. newspaper for tenders of supply of seeds of E. marginata.