30 June: Boreham on Ferdinand von Mueller

Botany and History
We celebrate today the birthday of a modest, painstaking and adventurous scholar whose fine work for Australia has never been adequately recognised. Sir Ferdinand von Mueller—usually known as Baron von Mueller—was a botanist. Is there, on the face of the earth, a land that owes so much to the science of botany as Australia does? It may be true that these southern climes, with their curious and sometimes almost grotesque flora, have made a notable and valuable contribution to the collections of the naturalists; but it is no less true that the pursuit of botanical research has contributed most handsomely to the rise and development of Australia.

Not once nor twice, but many times, the luxurious wealth of our Australian forestry has lured eager young scientists from the other side of the world; and in their ardent search for the specimens that they coveted, these venturesome investigators have become our most intrepid and successful explorers. In their laudable determination to exploit and classify the curiosities and oddities of the Australian bush, these zealous young students have incidentally opened up vast tracts of country and given a new and ampler direction to the march of Australian history. In their desire to add to the lustre of the science that they loved, they have incalculably enriched the theatre of their researches. A list of such gallant spirits would include, not only men like Sir Joseph Banks, Allan Cunningham, and Ludwig Leichhardt, but the knightly young Dane, the anniversary of whose birth we now celebrate.

Australia Offers A Home & Secures A Benefactor
Even in childhood, botany was a passion with von Mueller. Born in 1825 of Danish parents, he was never tired of collecting, examining and classifying the flowers, grasses and shrubs that flourished around his home. Because it was in line with such predilections, he studied chemistry at the university at Kiel and took his degree as Doctor of Philosophy in the year in which he came of age. But, by this time, a hacking and persistent cough had begun to trouble him; the doctors shook their heads and talked gravely of tuberculosis, and the youth, eager to achieve something before he died, determined to seek a climate in which he would have a better chance of attaining maturity. He therefore came to Australia, arriving at Christmas-time in 1847. He obtained employment in Adelaide as a chemist; but, realising that he had stumbled on a botanist's paradise, his heart hungered for the wide open spaces. He began by exploring the picturesque ranges and wild bush country within easy reach of Adelaide; and, five years after his arrival, wrote an essay on the flora of South Australia for the Linnean Society of London.

Recognition came swiftly. In that same year, on Sir Joseph Hooker's recommendation, he was appointed government botanist of Victoria; and, during the three years that followed, he traversed the whole of the south-eastern section of the continent, adding materially to the world's knowledge of Australian flora. In 1855 he accompanied Sir Augustus Gregory on the expedition that had as its twofold objective the discovery of the source of the Victoria River and the solution of the mystery of the disappearance of Leichhardt. During the years that followed he not only did a good deal of exploratory work himself, but he rendered valuable assistance to Forrest, Giles, Tietkens, Burke, Wills and others whose names have now become renowned. He even took a hand in the promotion and organisation of Antarctic research. Two years after his settlement in Melbourne he helped to form the Royal Society of Victoria, and there were, in those days, very few learned and scientific enterprises that did not owe their existence or their prosperity to his inspiration or assistance. At one time he stood connected with no fewer than 150 organisations aiming at the diffusion of the fruits of scientific investigation.

Dreading Death Yet Courting It
All through his useful and adventurous life he was shadowed by the fear of a consumptive's grave. For this reason he never married; and in order to prolong his life to the utmost limits of possibility, he took extraordinary precautions to avoid chills and colds. To protect his chest he always wore a thick woollen muffler. Even in the height of summer, with the thermometer standing at 100 in the shade and a hot northerly wind in full blast, he walk through the streets of Melbourne with his neck encased in this heavy woolen scarf. At banquets, in ballrooms and at scientific lectures, it was always there. Still, in spite of his dread of premature death, he lived to be 71, dying at last covered with well-won honours. The King of Bavaria made him an hereditary baron; France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Holland, and Sweden all made decorative recognition of his illustrious services; the Linnean Society and the Royal Society granted him their fellowships; and, in 1879 he was knighted by Queen Victoria.

Such tributes were richly merited. His reports to Parliament show that in one of his trips, he travelled 1,500 miles, adding 963 species to the catalogue of Australian flora. Whenever he found himself in some special peril, it was invariably because the botanist within him had betrayed the explorer within him into some indiscretion. In classifying the shrubs that abound on the banks of the Murray, he narrowly escaped a watery grave in the bed of the river. Always particularly intrigued by this island, he devoted a good deal of attention to the spread of distinctively Tasmanian vegetation on the mainland of Australia. He might have been a wealthy man, luxuriating in comfortable indolence, but he spent his private fortune and official income on the work to which he had dedicated his life and died poor. But, dying poor, he bequeathed to the world the memory of an eminent botanist who, by brilliant talents and heroic sacrifices, incalculably enriched both Australian learning and Australian life.

F W Boreham

Image: Ferdinand von Mueller