Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M4, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 62.07.24

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

George Bentham to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1862-07-24. R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells (eds), Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, <https://vmcp.rbg.vic.gov.au/id/62-07-24>, accessed April 29, 2025

1
Published in part in Moyal (1976) pp. 180-1.
Kew July 24/62
2
MS annotation at head of letter by M: 'Portrait'.
My dear Sir,
My letter dated the 14th I believe was finished on the post day (last Saturday) and despatched to save the post via Southampton — That same evening arrived yours of the 23rd May to which I now reply briefly via Marseilles
My former letters will have informed you of the safe arrival of the first second and third cases of your plants and of the redespatch to you of the first (including
Pittosporeae

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or the greater part of the second) per Norfolk
The 4th case per Orwell is not yet arrived. I trust the remainder will follow soon My previous letters will have given you the order I follow as far as I have gone After
Caryophylleae

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come (including only those Orders which are found in Australia where I believe are no
Guttiferae

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Ternstroemiaceae

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etc):
Portulaceae

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Elatineae

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Hypericineae

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Malvaceae

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Sterculiaceae

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(incl.
Buttnerieae

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&c)
Tiliaceae

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Lineae

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Malpighiaceae

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Zygophylleae

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Geraniaceae

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Rutaceae

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Simarubeae

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Burseraceae

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Meliaceae

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Olacineae

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Ilicineae

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Celastrineae

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Stackhousieae

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Rhamneae

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Ampelideae

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Sapindaceae

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Anacardiaceae

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3
A series of dots has been added beneath
Hypericineae

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,
Simarubeae

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,
Meliaceae

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and
Sapindaceae

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.
All which I hope to include in the 1st vol.
With regard to your view about species you seem to have taken a wrong view of mine[.] I had for a great many years during my continued observation of living plants in a great variety of stations in almost every country of Europe devoted much attention to the subject and had come more and more to the conclusion that species had fixed limits difficult as it is often to find them and that genera and Orders were arbitrary — and though I never wrote much on the subject I collected a great number of facts — and explained my views somewhat generally about genera in a Memorandum published in one of the first vols. of the Journal of the Linnean Society and I believe in a review of De Candolle's Geographie Botanique in the Edinburgh Review.
4
Bentham (1858) & Bentham (1856).
But I entered much more in detail into the question of species in a paper read at the Linnean Society in Nov 1858 but which circumstances prevented the publication at the time, but 2½ years later it was inserted in the first vol. of the Natural History Review
5
Bentham (1861b).
— I had no separate copies of this paper — I have not even one for myself — or I should have sent it you but I have no doubt you have the work. It was immediately after the reading of this paper that Darwin's remarkable observations were first made known — and whatever may be one's opinion of the speculative part of his work, it is very certain that the numerous facts he has observed must cause naturalists to reconsider their previous opinions, and I begin to think that my former views of the fixity of species must be in some measure modified — or at least exceptions admitted — But however that may be, if species are fixed, the evidence of what is a species and what is a race is never positive
6
M has interlined an annotation: (Whatever is not positive is not specific F.M.).
— always more or less circumstantial and therefore differently appreciated by different minds — and there is no hope of establishing the limits of species so as to admit of no dispute even on the part of the most experienced most acute and most right-judging botanists — without even taking into account that all men tend to attach undue importance to evidence discovered by themselves over that which others have brought forward.
I yesterday went through Brown's
Tremandreae

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and
Polygaleae

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— there was nothing in the former but five sets of queries I had already — in
Polygaleae

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he had Salomonia oblongif.
7
M has interlined an annotation: i.e.
Salomonia oblongifolia

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. (Flinders voy) F.M..
from Endeavour River — I had noted that it was Australian but somehow had forgotten on what grounds and should have omitted it again if I had not seen these. — He has also excellent specimens of your
Comesperma defoliatum

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from P. Jackson & Hunter's river
8
Both in NSW.
which we have not at Kew
9
The Australian collections made by Robert Brown (1773-1858) were held by the British Museum.
a new tropical Comesperma in the way of scoparium and a K.G.S.
10
King George Sound, WA
one allied to calymega but with rather longer flowers and very differently shaped fruits. I have not yet seen your C. spinosum — but of course all the Orders I do before your specimens arrive must be gone over again with them which is as well as it serves to check blunders doing things at twice at some interval.
Gypsophila tubulosa

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must be indigenous Brown found it on Cooks River and Nepean River and it could not then have established itself there from the Levant
I hope you are at work at the second volume of your Victorian Flora and that you will keep publishing that work ahead of me not only as the best way of securing to yourself the priority and credit of your observations, but as a depot of detailed information which there will be no room for in my work, and yet necessary for Victorian Botanists
11
The remainder of the letter was filed with G. Bentham to M, 24 March 1862. It could not have been written in March, as it responds to issues raised in M to G. Bentham, 23 May 1862.
No 18 of your Fragmenta which you mention
12
B62.05.01; see M to G. Bentham, 23 May 1862.
has not yet come to hand — Your specimens of
Streptothamnus

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are received — I do not know what to make of them — I have as yet nothing like a climber in
Bixineae

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— If at all of that order it comes into
Oncobeæ

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but is very unlike them.
Your
Gunnia

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had been overlooked — that is originally laid aside as not belonging to
Portulaceae

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proper but to
Tetragonieae

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I had forgotten to mention it among Genera exclusion
13
i.e. not included in the list of 'Genera affinia aut exclusa, v. dubia', Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 1, p. 156. See M to G. Bentham, 23 May 1862, for
Gunnia

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and the other topics in this and the next paragraphs.
I have this morning been at Polycarpaeae of which we have besides your very good specimens from Armstrong
14
John Armstrong, d. 1847.
Cunningham Macgillivray and Bynoe — all your species and from the N.W. Coast the 8 Indian and Arabian P. spicata.
15
Polycarpaea spicata

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.
I make out nine Australian species, that is three
Planchonia

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s (Gay) with the petals connate in a tube with the stamens two
Aylmerias

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free petals and staminodia — and four
Polycarpaceae

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proper — Tomorrow I begin upon
Portulaceae

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— that is
Portulaca

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Calandrinia

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and
Claytonia

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Yours very sincerely
George Bentham
Sir William has just received no 18 of your Fragmenta.
I see in No 17
16
B62.04.01.
you have two new
Anonaceae

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Your
Uvaria heteropetala

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from your characters is different from the only Australian Uvaria I have, one from Cape York McGillivray which I have called U. membranacea — but is not your
Unona nitens

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the same as U. nitidissima Dun. or U. fulgens Labill. Sert. Austro. Caled.
17
See Labillardière (1824-5), p. 57, tab. 56.
of which there are specimens from Queensland in Cunningham's collections and also in some others — and which is not a true Unona but a
Polyalthia

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having only 1 or 2 erect ovules in each carpel and not several as figured by mistake by Labillardiere. I have very carefully examined Labillardiere's own specimens as well as the Moreton Bay ones.