Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M4, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 63.04.25

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

George Bentham to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1863-04-25. 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/63-04-25>, accessed April 20, 2025

London April 25 /63
25 Wilton Place SW
My dear Sir
By this mail via Southampton I sent you 12 more sheets of the Flora. I now send to be shipped per "Prince of Wales" 4 boxes containing all the remainder of your plants belonging to this volume — I shall send the bill of lading next mail. I have still the
Droseraceæ

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and two or three other small parcels which come into the next.
Just received yours of the 20th February — some specimens you sent per mail to Sir W. Hooker — the box of supplemental
Thalamiflorae

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— and the box of
Leguminosae

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— all received safe.
You again urge me not to publish as synonyms temporary names unaccompanied by diagnoses — I have already said that I do not take up mere manuscript names — but where names have been printed and published, if they are not mentioned in a work like this it will always be supposed that I had not seen them and German botanists, at least will enumerate them as "species not satis notae." I see no way of avoiding this but by great caution in not giving names to specimens untill they have been sufficiently investigated to be tolerably safe from error. Names once launched by a botanist of your known experience and knowledge of Australian Plants are adopted and entered into Systems and Compilations and must in some manner be disposed of. However I do not think you will have to complain of my having quoted any uselessly.
With regard to the loose plants sent to Sir W. Hooker
Nematolepis Euphemiae

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is my
Phebalium Baxteri

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1
The synonyms mentioned by Bentham in the following text were not given in Bentham (1863-78), vol. 1, published 30 May 1863 (TL2). His names will have been in press before the supplementary material reached Kew, and information relating to new species or locations could not have been included. Many were newly described by Bentham in that volume, often from Robert Brown material. However, M did publish or list some of these names before the volume appeared. For example,
Nematolepis Euphemiae

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was published in B63.04.01, p. 149.
It has neither the gamopetalous corolla nor the staminal scales of Nematolepis. The woolly hairs round the ovary are very deciduous and had already fallen from the fully open flower I examined in Hb. Brown.
2
i.e. the herbarium of Robert Brown (1773-1858) at the British Museum.
Pachynema macrum

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is my P. junceum
3
Sheets bearing some of M's names exist at Kew, e.g. M's label on K700304,
Pachynema junceum

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, described by Bentham from specimens of Robert Brown's, has his name P. macrum under which it was listed but not formally described in B63.05.01.
Comesperma oxythecum

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is C. lanceolatum R Br.
Ionidium ambigium

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does not appear to me to differ from I. suffruticosum
Zygophyllum Howittii

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4
M published
Zygophyllum Howittii

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in B63.04.01, p, 150.
is I think Z. fruticulosum, var. bilobum (Z. aurantiacum Lindl.) The capsules of Z. fruticulosum are I find sometimes 3-winged instead of 4-winged in other specimens although I had not observed it before — and I find I have omitted to state what A. de Jussieu had already pointed out that the capsule is frequently 1-seeded by abortion as in Z. Howittii.
Ryssopterys Benthami

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I have no doubt R. timorensis to which I had already referred it and of which the colour of the flower is unknown but in the closely allied R. chrysantha it is golden yellow. Our Timor specimens are not quite glabrous and Cunningham's intermediate in that respect between the timor ones and yours.
The single Malvaceous flower is evidently an Abutilon near A. tubulosum but cannot of course be published without more complete specimens.
With regard to the supplemental
Thalamiflorae

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I will name and take notes of them for the first supplement I publish which I think of doing with the 2d vol. — An Addenda et Corrigenda to the 1st vol would not be worth publishing with it, for it would not obviate the need of one with the 2d vol for the first working with the 1st vol is sure to lead to the detection of errors which it would be good to correct by the first opportunity.
I am glad you have mentioned Mr Nernst in your letter. We all at first read the name on your labels Vernet and unfortunately it is so printed two or three times, and although in subsequent sheets I corrected it to Nernst I never till now felt confident that this was right
The whole of the volume including Preface etc. is in the printer's hands and almost all in type — the only thing which will take rather longer printing is the Index — which however I keep written up as the proofs come from the printers so that by next mail you will have the volume nearly if not quite complete.
Mr Black
5
Allan Black.
sends you 8 copies of our Genera
6
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83).
in the hopes that you will be able to dispose of them for him — and has sent the account with the copies — with the discount deducted.
I have omitted for the present your Eriostemon? [egmosus]
7
Bentham may have misread M's label. In B62.03.03, p. 121, M mentioned a plant collected by Hermann Beckler at the Clarence River (NSW) 'without fruits or well-developed flowers' and stated: 'if this plant should prove referable to Eriostemon it may receive the name E. erosus'.
from Leichhardts collection. It is certainly no Eriostemon but I cannot tell what it is — and unless specimens are sufficient to fix tolerably clearly their probable genus, it is only confusing science to publish them.
A propos of
Ryssopteris

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8
i.e. Ryssopterys.
— I must beg of you not to name species after me. I have so often expressed my opinion that unless in very exceptional cases species ought to be named after no other person than those who collected or discovered them and it would be awkward to have plants named after me in a work I am inditing. I always try to suppress all Benthamisms I can and am only sorry I could not do so with the
Olax

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so named by Miquel.
Yours ever sincerely
George Bentham
Dr F. Mueller