The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 22.7.96 ¶ My dear Baron, ¶ ¶ Will you do me the favour to consider the following points, & give me the benefit of your opinion — ¶ ¶ In your "Observations on New Vegetable-Fossils", Decade 2, 1883, ...

Document information

Physical location:

AMS 49/4, Curators' private letterbooks, pp. 244-5, Australian Museum Archives, Sydney. 96.07.22

Plant names

Phyllocladus Mülleri
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Spondylostrobus
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Preferred Citation:

Robert Etheridge Jr to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1896-07-22. 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/1890-6/1896/96-07-22-final.odt>, accessed June 13, 2026

22.7.96

My dear Baron,

Will you do me the favour to consider the following points, & give me the benefit of your opinion —

In your "Observations on New Vegetable-Fossils", Decade 2, 1883, p. 22,

B83.13.04.

you described fossil wood from the Haddon Gold-drift, assuming it to be that of your fruit genus . Now Schenk in Schimper's Palaeophytologie Vol. of Zittel's "Palaeontologie" p. […],

Space left in MS. The description appears in Schimper & Schenk (1890), p. 873.

describes wood from the Ballaarat

Now Ballarat, Vic.

-Gold-drifts under the name of Phyllocladus Mülleri , which he says the "Botanical Collection of Leipzig owes to the kindness of Dr Ferd. von Müller", I presume meaning yourself. Of this he gives three figures, and on the authority of Kraus says the wood of Phyllocladus is distinguished from that of Cupressi-form Conifers by the large oval [pores], inclined to the left, that are found on the parenchyma of its medullary rays. Now, from the fact that the wood on which was founded, is said to have been sent to Leipzig by you, it has occurred to me are P. Mülleri & your wood one & the same organism? On the other hand, altho' the perforations of the medullary rays of your Fig. 3, of Pl. 22

The reference should be to Plate 20.

( , op. cit.) are fairly large, still they do not appear to me to attain the size of those figured by Schenk in the corresponding part of his Phyllocladus Mülleri , nor are they oblique as in the latter, consequently the two forms may be different. It is on this point that I shall be glad to have your opinion.

I am,

Faithfully yrs

R. Etheridge