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RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70. ff. 149-51. 64.08.25

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1864-08-25. 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/64-08-25>, accessed April 19, 2025

1
The top of the first page of the MS is marked with a cross.
25./8./64.
Dear Mr Bentham.
The mailday has again arrived and your letter of 24. June is before me awaiting an answer.
I have to acknowledge your kind transmission of the first proof-sheets of vol. II, and beg to offer a few observations on that portion of the volume.
2
M's comments refer to entries in Bentham (1863-78), vol. 2, correcting the names of localities, adding new localities, or commenting on the taxonomic decisions. The species mentioned imply that M had received sheets including pages up to p. 448. M did not expect the comments to be acted upon before final publication, but had potential future supplementary volumes in mind (see Lucas (2003), p. 272).
A second, almost identical set of comments, also in M's hand but of unknown provenance, is at RB MSS M4a, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.
Pentadynamis

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, I feel perfectly convinced, is only a Crotalaria (C. eremaea vide report)
3
B59.04.03, p. 5; Bentham (1863-78), vol. 2, p. 185 under
Pentadynamis

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incana cites B62.07.01, p. 56, and comments 'F. Mueller ... refers the plant, without hesitation, to Crotalaria dissitiflora, Benth., var eremaea, [B62.07.01, p. 56] but R. Brown describes the keel as obtuse, the stamens diadelphous, and the pod flattened, all of them characters incompatible with Crotalaria'. See R. Brown (1849), p. 76.
with the unripe fruit compressed by drying. That R. Br. did not see the ripe fruit is apparent from his description.
Hardenbergia

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has in my opinion no claim on generic distinction (as stated in the fragmenta)
4
B64.02.01, p.79.
nor can I see the limits between
Cajanus

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&
Atylosia

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, which I vainly endeavoured to trace when writing the essay on the plants of the Burdekin Expedition.
5
B60.13.12.
Albizzia

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seems to me also a mere subgenus of
Acacia

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. The name Port Sinclair has to give way to that of Port Denison. I have the greatest possible doubt of
Oxylobium ellipticum

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occurring in West Australia the most western locality otherwise known being Gipps Land. Mount Butler as a locality for O. alpestre should be Mount Buller.
Oxylobium trilobatum

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occurs on that part of the Genoa River belonging to the Victorian territory. From this plant O. staurophyllum is certainly as a species not distinct. I purposely did not adopt the name nudiflorum for
Sphaerolobium foliosum

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, because the latter is so much more expressive; more over the bracts & bracteoles are in all probablity present, though very fugacious
I could also not help regretting the alteration of the specific name of
Mirbelia aphylla

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.
6
To M. daviesoides (Bentham (1863-78) vol. 2, p. 37, M gave the name M. aphylla in B63.09.01, p. 11.
Daviesia cordifolia

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,
7
M's herbarium name, on specimen K846618 at RBG Kew; see also Bentham (1863-78), vol. 2, p. 76.
to the generality of forms of which the name D. buxifolia is inapplicable, I have at last clearly traced into D. latifolia. Baxter's specimen must have been obtained at Wilson's promontory, a locality visited by that traveller, when he for instance found
Persoonia Caleyi

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.
Daviesia latifolia

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occurs in no part of South Australia, where I was 5 years travelling, and is therefore not likely to reappear in W. Australia, it being one of the prominent features of that complex of plants which might be called Tasmanian vegetation, altho' not restricted to that island, but fully developed in Australia felix on the opposite coast. If I am spared I hope to write some day a geography of of
8
Repeated word at beginning of line in MS.
Australian vegetation & intend then to dwell fully on this subject.
Daviesia horrida

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was named by Preiss.
Aotus villosa

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is an other Tasmanian form & a wide distance intervenes between it and the much taller
Aotus gracillima

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.
The enclosed note
9
See C. Wilhelmi and T. Mueller to M, 24 August 1864 (in this edition as 64-08-24a).
from my assistants, who unpacked one of the unfortunate cases sent by the Sussex will show you how it arrived. It is a terrible loss as even with drying & and oiling the rotten specimens they could not all be saved. I fear the Kew Agent does not regard these sendings in any other light but that of ordinary merchandise, for my old esteemed friend Capt Ridgers of the Sussex spontaneously assured me he would gladly have taken the boxes in his own private cabin had he known they contained anything I much valued. The soldering was also again very unsatisfactor[e]ly done and I hope you will not think me [un]modest if I impress on the party, who will be instructed with the future packing of the cases, that not always the same cases and even the same lids should be used, if they are no longer serviceable. I ver[e]ly believe, that a proper soldering of the cases would have avoided the disaster. As it is, it is of course excessively disheartening. The freight was not defrayed, but I paid it, as I offered to do in first instance, altho' this offer was not accepted.
As I may possibly be away for a very long time from here before any reply to this letter can reach me, I will only now assure you, that arrangements shall be made prior to my departure of a sufficiency of plants being placed in perfect order for your use so as to enable you to proceed with your work uninterruptedly for more than two years. The great order of Composites, which will absorbe at least a year of your labor, is indeed well prepared & so many others. I leave my own personal or rather scientific interest[s] confidently with you, feeling convinced that you will always with your usual generosity act towards me, & will be conscious, that in accumulating what I did in observations & collections for the flora of this country, I have spent the better years of a toilsome life, have undergone no usual hardships & sacrificed almost a fortune & certainly many other brilliant prospects of life. I have to you with cheerfulness given up my means for a work, which only once can be written, altho' I could have not been induced to do so towards any other botanist. I shall continue as I have commenced true to my words in a manly honorable spirit altho' you will feel with me that a sacrifice can not be a trifling one which annihilated one of my great objects of ambition & destroyed my plan of life.
Wishing that providence may grant you strenght both bodily & mentally to finish what you so labouriously begun and that you may add thus to the laurels, with which science so copiously has adorned your brow, I remain your very devoted
Ferd. Mueller
Geissois rubifolia I examined carefully. It must remain with that genus, if that at all stands; the winged seeds appear to be important in all species. Akan[i]a is certainly only a subgenus of Weinmannia.
I fear Dr Hooker will not approve of my dealing with some of the New Zealand plants, as my views on their specific limitation are so widely different from his.
However I can truely say, that I endeavoured to work conscientiously & so I hope my views will be respected. For it is after all only that ages after us will judge who is right or wrong when the true species in their perfect range of variability will be more fully known. In the preface to the work on the Chatham vegetation, I shall return more fully to this subject.
10
In the preface to B64.10.02 M argued that 'the number of species has been vastly overrated. ... A study of plants growing in localities, where they are exposed to the most unusual agencies, yields results of profound significance. ... But recognising this wonderful adapatabiity of the species to sometimes singularly different circumstances, the writer has never been led to assume, that limitation of species is hopeless, or that an uninterrupted chain of graduations absolutely connects the forms of the living creation.' (p. 7). See also M to R. Owen, 25 August 1864 (in this edition as 64-08-25c), and Lucas (2010).
Most likely Dr Hooker has simultaneously arrived in many instances at the same conclusions with myself.
11
The remainder of the text is a letter fragment filed at f. 38. It is placed here since Kennedya,
Hardenbergia

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and
Erythrophloeum

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occur in the same set of pages in Bentham (1863-78) , vol. 2, as species discussed above. The date of this letter is consistent with M's published note of the presence of the Elaeagnus, Rottlera and Osbeckia near Rockingham Bay, B64.11.01, p. 146, 139; B64.11.02, p 160 respectively.
Elaeagnus latifolia

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,
Rottlera paniculata

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&
Osbeckia Chinensis

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I have now from Rockingham Bay.
The name
Kennedya macrophylla

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adopted for my K. lateritia is not merely to be suppressed because it wants priority but because it is preoccupied for
Hardenbergia Comptoniana

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.The same objection is to be taken to the new
Pultenaea obcordata

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.
Heritiera litoralis

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, which I received recently in fruit from Rockingham Bay ripens at least occasionally 2 seeds in each carpel. I believe therefore thar R Br's remark of its ovules being only solitary in the carpels
12
Horsfield, Bennett & Brown (1838–52), p. 237. Bentham (1863-78), vol. 1, p. 231 and Bentham & Hooker (1862–83), vol. 1, p. 219, also describe the genus as having one ovule per carpel. M published his observation on Heritiera in B68.04.03, p. 173.
is to be regarded as exceptional & that Endlicher is quite right when he says that the ovaries have from 2-4 ovules.
13
Endlicher (1836-40), p. 993.
The needful alteration should therefore be made in the genera plantarum.
Is
Wagatea

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(Dalzell) really distinct from Erythrophloe[u]m