Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, ff. 88-92. 63.02.20

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1863-02-20. 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/63-02-20>, accessed April 20, 2025

Melbourne bot Garden
20/2/63
My dear Mr Bentham.
I am in possession of your highly interesting letter, dated 22 Dec 62.
1
G. Bentham to M, 22 December 1862.
and am glad to hear of the rapid progress of your researches for the "Australian flora". Though we differ considerably in our views on the limits of genera & species, of which you admit many more than I am inclined to do, I look forward with the greatest pleasure to the issue of your volume, as it will be for all times the foundation & complete framework of future researches on our plants.
The Oldfieldian Collections formed last year,
2
See M to G. Bentham, 24 September 1862.
and which are supplemental to the mainlot of
Rutaceae

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will have given some additions. They come in the care of the "Great Britain" & now I have the pleasure to announce the despatch ( simultaneous with this letter) of a box of Thalamiflorae supplemental to all my former collections. This box will go by the mailsteamer to Kew under Sir Will. Hookers adress, but I am not sure that I shall have a bill of loading, as the consignment will probably be put on the free list.
3
Case number 10 was sent on Madras, 22 February 1863 (M notebook recording despatch of plants to Kew for Flora australiensis, RB MSS M44, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne).
You will find many interesting plants in it. Ahead of these stands
Cakile maritima

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, discovered by myself on my trip to Phillip Island, where it grows abundantly as well as on the opposite western coast (& perhaps elsewhere about Western Port.) In the list I furnish with this letter I will more fully refer to this plant. Could it be an introduction? and if so why grows it not on any other part of the wide australian coast, over so many tracts of which my personal observations extends? If it grew elsewhere why did I not recognize a plant so familiar to me since, I may say, my childhood
Did the french Expedition
4
Géographe and Naturaliste, 1800-4. See Baudin (1974).
early this century drop accidentally seeds of the plant in some Emballage at Western port, which they visited?; and did it thence gradually spread around that large bay & had not time to progress further? I may mention that I see no other European plant in its company, that is restricted to the coast. But I find with it
Atriplex crystallinum

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5
Atriplex chrystallina?
J. Hook, which I had not seen before on any part of the Australian Continent
6
VICFLORA,  https://vicflora.rbg.vic.gov.au/flora/ (accessed 31 July 2018) describes
Cakile maritima

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as introduced and naturalized.
The box contains my Thalamiflorae from the last alpine trip, & from Phillip Island; further the Thalamiflorae of Howitts Expedition, of J. Macd. Stuarts last great Expedition & of Mr Maxwells five-monthly journey to the western part of the Great Australian Bight, further some Thalamiflorae recently received from Mr Joseph Nernst of Ipswich Queensland & finally the first installment of the collections formed on our Expense for this department by Mr Dallachy in Queensland and who is now located at the ranges of the Fitzroy River in the vicinity of Keppel Bay. I believe you will receive these plants in time for supplemental pages of your 1 vol, before it is completed in print. The Zygophyllum Howittii is highly remarkable for its 3-winged one-seeded indehiscent fruits. I am just completing a botanical appendix for Howitts journal.
7
B63.05.01, pp. 16-18.
Maxwells collections are purchased by me at not inconsiderable expenses. I intend finishing a new number of the fragmenta,
8
B63.04.01.
which is partially in type since months, but which in consequence of my travels was not completed before. This will probably bring the 3. vol to a close with a full index.
9
index is marked in the margin with a cross.
I intend to print then the
Leguminosae

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for the flora of Victoria,
10
B63.13.06, the only portion of proposed volume printed—but not formally published—discusses Acacia.
if my health permits me to work in such an uninterrupted manner, as the elucidation of that Great Order requires. I regret to say, that I feel the effect of overexertions of former years, as well in travels as house-work, & did not my duties to your work demand steady action I would probably cease working for about a year for the sake of my health.
I fully concur in your suggestion of reducing some of the Australian genera of
Leguminosae

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.
11
See G. Bentham to M, 22 December 1862.
Sclerothamnus is certainly only an
Eutaxia

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.
Euchilus

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&
Spadostylis

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12
Spadostyles?
are Pultneaea, for if we admit species with opposite & alternate leaves in
Spadostylis

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we can admit both to
Pultenaea

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.
Have you readily a spare copy of your
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for Martius
13
Bentham (1859-76); part 1 of the volume had been published by the time M wrote the letter, in fascicles issued in 1859 and 1862. Bentham had no spare copy (see G. Bentham to M, 18 May 1863) but M received a copy from Martius (see M to G. Bentham, 23 July 1863).
to give away? if so I should be thankful for it, because I do not keep the Flora Brasiliens., having no vote for books & finding it almost beyond my slender private means to acquire for my library all that is needed even for my botanic works on Australia. I am glad the box pr "Great Britain" arrived Will you kindly on return cause a little roughly squeezed paper to be placed between the fascicles of the herbarium in the box, so that the lower strat[a] may not suffer from too great a pressure?
I had not sufficient leisure to make so extensive extracts of my journal on Thalamiflorae as I intended but I have given some (and what I consider the main-ones) from my notes on Gregorys Expedition.
14
See M to G. Bentham, 24 January 1863. Notes on Gregory's Expedition not found.
It would be well for you to have a glance over my manuscripts at Kew.
15
MSS not found.
You find thus a very elaborate description of
Adansonia

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, drawn up from a multitude of fresh plants.
16
M described
Adansonia

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gregorii in B57.01.01, p. 14, but that is relatively brief; Bentham does not cite M's MS notes in the description in Bentham (1863-78), vol. 1, p. 223.
The fruit is not carefully described, but a large quantity of it was sent to Kew. The few capsules I kept were used in raising this plant.
Dr Hooker will be pleased to hear that I found on Phillip Island
Cyathodes divaricata

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&
Atriplex crystallinum

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.
17
Atriplex chrystallina?
— I cannot see, how
Cakile maritima

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, C. Americana & C. aequalis are to be distinguished. My American specimens have generally the lower part of the silique fertile, whilst my baltic & north sea specimens are mostly one-seeded. It seems Cakile was not previously found anywhere in the Southern hemisphere.
By the " Suffolk " I shipped (freight paid) on the 20 January 1863 21 parcels
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in one box, being box No. 9. It contains, as mentioned in my last letter
18
M to G. Bentham, 24 January 1863.
chiefly Extravictorian genera of
Leguminosae

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.
From Moreton Bay two collectors sent as a wild plant Stigmatophyllum ciliatum. I can see no difference from the Brazil [specimen]
19
uncertain reading — text obscured by binding.
which I have from the Berlin bot. Garden. So it must be a Garden fugitive; but perhaps it would be best to allude to the fact under
Malpighiaceae

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. Will you kindly let me know, whether my letters by the Columb[o]
20
The mail packet Colombo was wrecked on Minicoy Island, the southernmost island of the Lakshadweep archipelago, Indian Ocean, on 19 November, without loss of life. Some of the mails were saved. (Times (London), 9 December 1862, p. 10; 19 December 1862, p. 9; 27 December, p. 7.) [See PS to this letter.]
mail are entirely lost? I hardly remember, what I sent & wrote at the particular time, so as to restore it I am grateful for your promise of sending back the
Rutaceae

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&c when done; as it is part of a public collection, there is occasional demand for these things. Of Ryssopterys I have just received specimens in flower, which prove the petals yellow. The plant is thus nearer [R. c]hrysantha
21
uncertain reading — text obscured by binding.
Hassk than to R. tiliaefolia, to which I formerly referred fruit-specimina. Will you, if the plant is new, allow me to dedicate it to you?
Tristellateia Australis (or Australiae as called in the plate) I know only from Richards figure
22
A. Richard (1832-4), pl. 15.
Pittosporum ferrugineum

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I have now in flower from the Fitzroy River. Is it really also an African plant? and if so is ours really the same. The range of the other Pittospora seems local. I do not find any notice of it in your Niger Flora
23
J. Hooker & Bentham (1849).
nor in Wight & Arnott prodr,
24
Wight & Arnott (1834).
nor in Thwaites enum
25
Thwaites (1864).
nor in Miquels Ind. Batav.
26
Miquel (1855-9).
Pittosporum ferrugin. var filarium is according to Rumphs figure
27
Rumphius (1755), pl. 7.
quite a different plant with large fruits
Ever yours
Ferd Mueller
Pardon me for expressing the hope, that you will not spoil your fine work by quotations of any indiagnostified synonyms.
28
The paragraph is a marginal note on the back of f. 89. See also Lucas (1995).
Possibly you may have amongst Rob. Brown's plants my second species of Nematolepis, for which I adopted the name N. Euphemiae, as the vicinity of Cape Arid was visited by Flinders Expedition
In your last letter, in which you refer to allied genera, no mention is made of any increment of Nematolepis. Should my plant not be in type with you already, you would confer a favor in adopting Miss Euphemia Hendersons name for its specific designation, since I am anxious to do honor in your first volume to this highly intelligent lady, whose character is admirably symbolized in her christian name.
The loss of the letters pr Columbian is vexatious. I keep no copies of ordinary (not strictly official) correspondence and hence I do really not know what the notes were I sent pr Columbian, otherwise I could restore them.
29
Possibly you may have amongst Rob. Brown's ... otherwise I could restore them. is written on a separate, single sheet of paper (f.92).
Although the fragment might have come with a different letter, it almost certainly accompanied this letter. The reference to
Nematolepis Euphemiae

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indicates that it was written near the time of the letter M to E. Henderson 22 February 1863, which also refers to extra work caused by the wreck of Colombo , and M having completed the mail to be sent to Bentham.
M is referring to the Australian collections of Robert Brown (1773-1858) at the British Museum to which Bentham had access.