The Stralsund region had become Swedish during the course of the Thirty Years' War, following a military siege in 1628; but in 1815, under terms mandated at the Congress of Vienna, the whole of Pommerania was returned to Prussia: Daniel's father, a successful commercial/market gardener, changed the family name from "Moller" to "Müller".

In 1839 he was able to switch to Uppsala[2] where on the recommendation of Hornschuch he took over responsibility for the Botanical Gardens, thereby becoming an indirect successor of the celebrated botanist Linnaeus.

Müller was peculiarly suitable for the Uppsala position not merely on account of his expertise as a gardener, but also because his upbringing had left him fluent in both German and Swedish.

However, there were personnel problems at the Uppsala Botanical Gardens, where he felt he was underpaid, and after a couple of years Müller handed in his notice, and, in 1841, moved to Stockholm, taking a position with the recently established Swedish Horticultural Society (Svenska trädgårdsföreningen).

At a time of rapid change in the world of horticulture, Müller also continued his own education with study trips to Germany and Denmark.

[3] In 1851, Elias Magnus Fries at last took over the teaching professorship for Botany at Uppsala University, appointed the same year as director in charge of the Botanical Gardens.

Fries gained the promotion because of the death of the previous incumbent, Göran Wahlenberg, who seems to have been involved in the personnel problems that had induced Müller to relocate to Stockholm in 1841.

[3] He also took up a request from the "Economic Society", and arranged for a 2-hectare (4.9-acre) site to the south of the Botanical Gardens to be planted with fruiting and ornamental trees.

In 1874 friends founded the "Daniel Müller stipendiefond", a travel bursary fund administered by the Stockholm Gardeners' Society.

[1] Müller lived before Evolution had been written up and become mainstream among scientists, and his own thoughts concentrate on the "moral" causes and outcomes in a natural world able to operate without human involvement.