10 INTRODUCTION 
numerous admirable works on flower pollination, e.g. on adaptations for securing 
pollination in Posoguerta (1866) and Heerza, on humming-bird-flowers, on a poison- 
like action of pollen in cases of self-pollination, and on di- and tri-morphous plants 
of Brazil. 
The individual investigations contained in numerous different periodicals made 
it necessary to collate and group the results. This was first done in the work 
born on March 31, 1822, was the eldest son of Pastor Miiller, Windischholzhausen, who was 
afterwards removed to Miihlberg, near Gotha. His mother was a daughter.of J. Barth. Tromsdorf, 
the chemist of Erfurt. Fritz Miiller, along with his brother Hermann, first attended the village 
school at Miihlberg under Rector Tanzer, and was afterwards prepared by his father for the 
gymnasium. In Erfurt he entered the third class, and there he passed the leaving examination. 
Thereafter, he prepared at Naumburg for the study of Pharmacy; but from 1840 onwards, he 
studied Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Berlin and Greifswald. After passing his examination 
as teacher, he spent his probation year at the gymnasium in Erfurt. With a view to making 
expeditions to foreign parts, he next studied Medicine, in the hope of becoming a naval surgeon. 
In 1852 he emigrated to South America. First he settled in Blumenau as a farmer, and afterwards 
went to the Lyceum in Desterro. 
To this period belong his chief studies on marine animals (Crustacea). In 1864 his work 
‘Fir Darwin’ appeared. In 1865, after being driven by the Jesuits from his office, he returned to 
Blumenau as travelling naturalist of the province of Santa Catharina, and there he remained till the 
end of his life on May 21, 1897. 
To this period also belong the following events of importance in his career :— 
In 1884 (September): journey to the sea with his step-brother, Karl Miller, Professor of 
Zoology in Greifswald, who returned to Germany in June, 1885. 
In 1885 he became acquainted with Eichler’s Bliitendiagramme, on the plan of which he worked 
through the Brazilian flora. 
In 1886 he reported on excursions which he made with E. Ule; then he spent two memorable 
months with the German scientists Schimper and Schenck, who remained till November 11. To this 
time belong his chief investigations on figs, and fig-wasps. 
In 1888 he received from Dr. Alfred Moller (assistant to Prof. Brefeld, in Miinster), his work on 
the culture of Lichen-forming Ascomycetes without Algae; and to his joy recognized a nephew 
in the author. By this work, and also stimulated by E. Fischer (Phalloideae) and F. Ludwig, 
he was led to procure and study De Bary’s ‘ Morphologie und Biologie der Pilze.’ 
In 1889 he was introduced by Ludwig to the writings of Brefeld, and later he received from 
Brefeld a treatise, and soon adopted his views on Mycology. 
In 1889 the Brazilian Revolution broke out, and came to a temporary end on the expulsion 
of Dom Pedro, his friend and patron. 
To the year 1890 belongs the visit of Alfred MOller, subsequently head-forester in Idstein, near 
Wiesbaden, and now Professor at the Academy of Forestry in Eberswalde. As Schimper and 
Schenck, under F. Miiller’s guidance, took back valuable treasures for German science (ant-plants, 
tropical epiphytes, and the like), so, under his uncle’s superintendence, Mdller’s works on Hymeno- 
lichenes, Brazilian fungus-flowers, and fungus gardens of South American ants, &c., were produced. 
Affairs in Brazil went from bad to worse. The new Government intimated to him without 
explanation that he was removed from his office and would receive no more pay. The album that 
was sent to him by German naturalists for his seventieth birthday reached him only on 
October 5, 1892. Letters were frequently not delivered at all at his address. In 1893 there was 
a battle in the neighbourhood of Blumenau. The revolutionaries robbed him of part of his property, 
and imprisoned him for eight days, and he was indebted for the preservation of his life only to 
a fortunate accident. 
In 1894 his wife died on her 68th birthday. Two of his six daughters are married in 
Blumenau, one of them in Buenos Ayres. His grandchildren, Fritz and Hans Lorenz, are 
naturalists. They possess keen powers of observation and a warm interest in natural processes, like 
their grandfather, whom Charles Darwin justly named a ‘prince of observers.’ In the Bot. 
Centralblatt, Ixxi, there appeared a full biography of Fritz Miiller from the pen of F. Ludwig. 
