The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: Your collaborator Willkomm, 'the curls probably also shine so silver-white, whitened by the fullness of the years': I remember very well in the 40s of the century, how he discovered the ¶ Biarum ¶ . ...

Document information

Physical location:

Lange papers, Botanisk Centralbibliotek, Copenhagen. 93.09.05

Plant names

Biarum
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Todea
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Johan Lange, 1893-09-05. 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/93-09-05>, accessed September 11, 2025

5/9/93

You asked me, dear Prof. Lange, in your last kind letter, to send you an other impression of a portrait of mine; but I do not remember, whether you allude to a photogram or a lithogram. Kindly let me know which, and I will gladly fulfil your wish. It is with much sorrow, that I hear of your impaired eyesight; but you have worked so long and so zealously with the microscope, that such sufferings, — distressing though they are —, come not as a surprise. My visual power is not so good now either than 1840, when I commenced to use magnifying lenses extensively.

It was very pleasing to me, that the arrived safely, it was the "last of the Mohikans"

See M to J. Lange, 17 April 1893. M refers to J. F. Cooper, The last of the Mohicans (1826). M had previously told Lange that no more specimens of giant s were available; see M to J, Lange, 24 January 1893 (in this edition as 93-01-24a).

as far as known.

Always with regardful remembrance your

Ferd. von Mueller

Ihrem Collaboratär Willkomm "glänzen auch wohl die Locken so silberweiss gebleicht von der Fülle der Jahre":

Slight misquotation of

Ihm glänzte die Locke silberweiß,

Gebleicht von der Fülle der Jahre.

that is, lines 33 and 34 of Schiller, ‘Der Graf von Habsburg’ ( https://www.friedrich-schiller-archiv.de/gedichte-schillers/balladen-schiller/der-graf-von-habsburg/ accessed 24 July 2018).

Ich erinnere sehr wohl in den 40 Jahren des Jahrhunderts wie er das entdeckte. Grüssen Sie ihn recht freundlichst, wenn Sie ihm schreiben. Auch sein Bild hängt in meiner Studirstube (lithographisches Portrait)

Your collaborator Willkomm, 'the curls probably also shine so silver-white, whitened by the fullness of the years': I remember very well in the 40s of the century, how he discovered the .

Willkomm (1847) described a species from Malaga, found during the two years that he spent in the Iberian peninsula; see Devesa Alcaraz & Maria del Carmen (2001), pp. 274, 308.

Most friendly greetings to him if you write to him. His picture also hangs in my study (lithographic portrait)