The South Australian Naturalist. 77 



number of his compatriots, through the encouragement shown 

 by George Fife Angas, had already settled in South Australia. 

 On board the ship, "Hermann von Beckerath," were several 

 well-known German colonists, including Mr. Moritz Heuzen- 

 roeder, who for many years conducted a chemist's shop in 

 Rundle Street, Adelaide. He engaged the young man as au 

 assistant, so that a situation was ready on his landing. 



The ship sailed in a leisurely way across the Atlantic, 

 touching at Rio de Janeiro, where ^Mueller botanized and carried 

 on board the ship a stock of tropical plants. Port Adelaide was 

 reached on December 18, 1847. For a year Mueller worked at 

 the shop, but he must have been allowed considerable liberty 

 by his employer, for we know that he made excursions to the 

 ridges and gullies of the Mount Lofty Ranges, to Guichen Bay 

 in the south-east, to the Murray scrubs, and as far north as 

 Mounts Brown and Arden. 



In Hooker's ** Journal of Botany" (1853) there are to be 

 seen the abstracts of two papers, written by Mueller, and read 

 before the Linnean Society in London by its librarian. The 

 title of the first paper is "The Vegetation of the Districts sur- 

 rounding Lake Torrens." One brief excerpt from it may be of 

 interest: "Sparingly diffused, but far exceeding all the other 

 flowers in its incomparable beauty, is the queen of Australian 

 flowers, Clianthus Dampieri, which spreads its long shoots over 

 the gravelly soil.""* The whole paper shows that Mueller was 

 not merely a collector of plants, interested only in their nomen- 

 clature, but that he was capable of taking a broad view of his 

 science and oi making sweeping generalizations. This, and the 

 other paper published in the same volume, did not escape the 

 vigilant eye of Sir William Hooker, then the Director of Kew 

 Gardens. He and Mueller soon became correspondents, and 

 in subsequent volumes of the "Journal of Botany," Hooker 

 gives frequent excerpts from the letters written by the enthu- 

 siastic young botanist on this side of the world. 



In Schleswig, during the year 1841, Mueller had become 

 acquainted with the late F. E. W. H. Krichauff. They had 

 seen much of each other as students at Kiel, and a year after 

 Mueller's arrival in South Australia, Krichauff landed and 

 settled on a section of land in the Bugle Ranges, between 

 Mount Barker and Strathalbyn. He allowed Mueller to pur- 

 chase a portion of this land, and they became neighbours. 

 Mueller had a small house erected, and installed his sister Clara 

 as housekeeper. But he did not attain success as a farmer, and 

 no doubt his efforts were the occasion of much critical com- 



* It will interest readers to knovr that this flower has recently been adopted as 

 the badge of our club. 



