The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: Melbourne bot. Garden, ¶ 22/9/65. ¶ ¶ I have, dear Mr Bentham, your kind letter of 23 july ¶ before me and am much pleased with the information it contains. It is interesting to observe that we have...

Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, ff. 174-5. 65.09.22

Plant names

Affonsea
Search for Affonsea in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Archidendron
Search for Archidendron in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Brachychiton
Search for Brachychiton in
Brachycome
Search for Brachycome in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Celmisia
Search for Celmisia in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Compositae
Search for Compositae in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Eucalyptus
Search for Eucalyptus in
Eugenia
Search for Eugenia in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Eurybia
Search for Eurybia in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Geissois
Search for Geissois in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Gillbeea
Search for Gillbeea in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Hedraianthera
Search for Hedraianthera in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Irvingia
Search for Irvingia in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Leguminosae
Search for Leguminosae in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
MIntyria
Search for MIntyria in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Macintyria
Search for Macintyria in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Mallotus
Search for Mallotus in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Mimosa
Search for Mimosa in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Nothocittus Irwinngii
Search for Nothocittus Irwinngii in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Olearia
Search for Olearia in
Pithecolobium
Search for Pithecolobium in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Poygaleae
Search for Poygaleae in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Saxifrageae
Search for Saxifrageae in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Scolopia
Search for Scolopia in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Symplocos
Search for Symplocos in
Weinmannia
Search for Weinmannia in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Xanthophyllum flavescens
Search for Xanthophyllum flavescens in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1865-09-22. 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/65-09-22>, accessed April 19, 2025

Melbourne bot. Garden,

22/9/65.

I have, dear Mr Bentham, your kind letter of 23 july

See G. Bentham to M, 23 July 1865.

before me and am much pleased with the information it contains. It is interesting to observe that we have Xanthophyllum in Australia. It never struck me, that the plant was polygalaceous, though I now remember to have indian flowering specimens in my herbarium, but I did not recognize the fruit as polygaleous. Is not a great alliance thus between the & ? I will reexamine the embryo to see whether the cotyledons are in reality foliaceous.

Your remark on as related to the new gorgeous Australian Mimosea is highly remarkable. I have reexamined accordingly the plant & though I have unfortunately no true e in the herbarium I am well guided by your definition of the genus & by the figure to which you direct my attention. If not an error exists in calling the leaves of simply pinnate, than

then?

the Australian plant cannot be united with it because its leaves are truely bipinnate ! I have consequently separated the plant & placed it into a new distinct genus between & , giving it the name of (if you like the Marshalls tree) The definition of the genus is in the printers hand.

M erected (A. vaillantii) in B65.10.04, p. 60.

Perhaps you may have it in time for quotation in your genera.

Bentham & Hooker (1862-83). Details were inserted in the Addenda et Corrigenda of vol. 1, p. 1003.

The fruit of I send with this letter. You will perceive, it is that of the pulpless Pithecolobia not of e. How nice it is to see the chains of affinities in many instances brought so beautifully into [contact.]

As regards I can neither share your opinion. At first sight I also thought the plant filiaceous, but we know as yet no genus of that order with compound leaves. That the leaves are truely pinnate cannot admit of a doubt, as you will notice when inspecting one leaf herewith sent. The leaves may accidentally be unifoliate, but they are never truely simple. So it seems better until we know the ripe fruit to leave the genus in . I feel obliged for your pointing out, that already an exists. I have within the next days when publishing my departmental report & giving a series of the genera introduced by me into the literature on the plants of Australia an opportunity of altering the name into .

M erected (I. australiana) in B65.04.01, pp. 17–18, but Joseph Hooker had erected in 1860 (J. Hooker (1862), read 21 June 1860). Nothocittus (N. Irvingii) is mentioned without description as a new genus in B65.10.01, p. 12, but is not in APNI (accessed 29 April 2020).

The relation of & , as defined by you is not clear to me. Brogniart

Brongniart.

(like myself) in his new essay on the plants of New Caledonia lays much stress on the winged seeds

Brongniart & Gris (1863a), pp. 368-73.

I will when occasion arises inquire more extensively into the subject.

I intend to send an instalment of by the "Kent" next week. Perhaps I shall however not have the bill of loading before next mail. You will receive 3 parcels, & a number of other asteroid genera. & are as we long know identical Dr Hooker is right in vindicating the priority of , though this obliges us now to change the names of many more than in a reversed case would have taken place in . But this sort of change has now been recognized as in , &c & is of course just .

If you draw any into the 3 vol they ought to go all.

were treated in Bentham (1863-78), vol. 3, pp. 447-680.

How many species the order contains I cannot say, but believe not less than 500, with numerous genera. I should have thought that 100 Eucalypti would have taken up 100 pages, as you have to [reduct] so many as varieties & each of the latter must be recorded in some way. If you find difficulties in taking in could not the 3 vol bring supplements to the 1 & 2?

The £100 are transmitted as before.

The Victorian Government's contribution to the payment to Bentham for writing Flora australiensis.

I mentioned this in my last letter.

M to G. Bentham, 21 August 1865 is the previous known letter, but the transmission of the payment was not mentioned in it but in M to G. Bentham, 11 June 1865.

Trusting that you enjoy unimpaired health & grateful for the attentive information I received from you I remain

your regardful

Ferd. Mueller

Mr M'Kinlay goes out again to explore the country near the new settlement in the north of Arnhem’s Land. I have asked him to bestow your name on one of the leading new geographic features.

The main objective of the expedition was to select a site for the capital of the Northern Territory in anticipation of future settlement, but it proved 'dismally unprofitable and disastrously expensive' and if the account of one of the expedition members is accepted 'even as a slightly exaggerated account, McKinlay stands convicted of a forgetfulness, crass stupidity, unscientific outlook, cruelty, vindictiveness, ignorance and criminal cowardice, which is entirely absent from the records of his previous explorations' (Threadgill, 1922, p. 104). Threadgill reports that McKinlay's plan of his expedition is missing; Bentham's name is not attached to a geographical feature on late twentieth-century maps of the area.

The new herewith sent I have not yet seen in flower.

Probably angophoroides, described with flowers but without fruit, in B65.06.02, p. 33

I have now a second species of sent.

stawellii, in B65.10.04, p. 60.

I have sent the diagnosis of a new celastrinous genus from Rockinghams Bay to the press.

I have distinguished it as

M erected Hedrainthera (H. porphyropetala) in B65.10.04, p. 59

on acount of its sessile anthers.

The following two paragraphs are on a separate sheet of paper bound after M to G. Bentham, 9 January 1865, as f. 160. The content suggests that it was almost certainly sent with this letter.

I have since writing to you the enclosed note reexamined the seeds of the Australian Xanthophyllum and find them precisely as described in ,

was published in B65.04.01, p. 8.

as you will perceive when inspecting the enclosed fragments. The cotyledons differ in nothing from ordinary leafy cotyledons; they are green while the albumen is pale; they are most readily separated from the latter and do not adhere to it as in or some other Sterculiaceous, genera.

This is the first instance, that so anomalous a structure of seed in the same genus came under my notice. Of course we all know that in many genera the presense of albumen is that of degree but I am not acquainted with any case analogous to this I am almost inclined to regard the green shining lining of the commissural face of the supposed embryo of the typical Xanthophylli as the true cotyledons & the opace hemispheric portion, which is intimately grown with it together as albuminous. I found fruit of a Ceylon Xanthophyllum in Thwaites collection & have given an opinion on this to the effect in a new account of the M'Intyria,

B65.10.04, pp. 57-8.

which I cannot regard identical with X. flavescens, with which you are inclined to place it. Hasskarl

Hasskarl (1848), p. 297.

finds in one Xanthophyllum from Java a scanty albumen.