Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Victoria (Australia) by Governor Charles La Trobe in 1853, and later director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne. He also founded the National Herbarium of Victoria. He named many Australian plants. Early life Mueller was born at Rostock, in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. After the early death of his parents, Frederick and Louisa, his grandparents gave him a good education in Tönning, Schleswig. Apprenticed to a chemist at the age of 15, he passed his pharmaceutical examinations and studied botany under Professor Ernst Ferdinand Nolte (1791–1875) at Kiel University. In 1847, he received his degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Kiel for a thesis on the plants of the southern regions of Schleswig. Mueller's sister Bertha had been advised to seek a warmer climate for her health, and the great botanist Ludwig Preiss, who had recently returned from Perth, recommended Australia, so in 1847, Mueller and his two surviving sisters sailed from Bremen. While still on the ship, he reportedly fished his first plants out of the water to analyse them. Australia von Mueller was one of a number of influential German-speaking residents such as William Blandowski, Ludwig Becker, Hermann Beckler, Amalie Dietrich, Diedrich Henne, Gerard Krefft, Johann Luehmann, Johann Menge, Ludwig Preiss, Carl Ludwig Christian Rümker (a.k.a. Ruemker), Moritz Richard Schomburgk, Richard Wolfgang Semon, George Ulrich, Eugene von Guérard, Robert von Lendenfeld, Georg von Neumayer, and Carl Wilhelmi who brought their "epistemic traditions" to Australia, and not only became "deeply entangled with the Australian colonial project", but also "intricately involved in imagining, knowing and shaping colonial Australia" (Barrett, et al., 2018, p.2). He arrived at Adelaide on 18 December 1847 and found employment as a chemist with Moritz J. Heuzenroeder, in Rundle Street. He was an inveterate explorer, walking alone to Mount Arden and Mount Brown during his first year. Shortly afterwards, he obtained of land not far from Adelaide in the Bugle Ranges, and had a cottage built there. He moved there with his sister Clara, intending to start a farm, but after a few months, he returned to his former employment. Mueller thought to open a chemist's shop in the gold diggings, so in 1851, he moved to Melbourne, capital of