25, WILTON PLACE, S.W.
Oct 18/65
My dear Sir
Since I wrote I have received yours of the 14th July for which I thank you and I have
seen also the specimens you sent by the same mail addressed to Sir Wm Hooker. The
shall be duly examined — the red leguminous climber (which you provisionally called
Kennedya or
) is a very interesting one being the
of Vogel
which we had as yet only from the Pacific islands and from Ceylon — it remains to
be verified how far the supposed species are identical or only nearly allied
I have had notice from the Crown Agents that the £100 will be paid after the 26th
— Many thanks — I fear it will be long before I shall require the next instalment.
I am now in the thick of Eucalyptus and get perfectly confused having to go over so
many specimens over and over again before I can match them. The bark character you
point out may be an excellent one but unfortunately in most cases unavailable for
want of accurate notes from the collectors The anthers by which you distinguish two
species otherwise alike is frequently a good character but often difficult to observe.
The venation a very constant one in most cases but very difficult to describe — so
that with the great mass of the common N. S. Wales ones I have great difficulty in
sorting them into species — and hitherto so many of Smiths
and other old ones have been wrongly identified Even Smith himself puzzled one —
his piperita — he first described and figured in White's voyage
a leafless bunch of fruits and two sprigs in leaf only then he thought these had
been mismatched (which they were not) and referred the fruit to one he afterwards
described (not in White's voyage) as capitellata.
In that he was right but the leaves belong there too and not to the flowering specimen
he afterwards described as piperita which is acervula (I know not yet what name it
will retain) As far as I have gone I do not see my way to distinct groups — parallel
distinct anther-cells generally go with regular numerous diverging veins, diverging
confluent anther-cells with irregular very oblique veins — but there are notable examples
— as in E. marginata Sm. which has the veins of the first & the anthers of the second,
the shape of the calyptra goes for very little — the shape of the fruit is better
I think
if we get it properly developed and ripened
— and in many specimens it looks as if it had dried so as to look ripe before it
has attained its proper size & shape. In short after I have done the genus it will
require your doing it over again
in the country
where you can ascertain many particulars that the specimens do not show and which
your experience will give you — then I hope you will work up a detailed monograph
of Eucalyptus
— with their practical qualities and give figures of all or at least of the useful
and prominent species — that would be a noble work which none but yourself can do
properly — and my present labour will only be useful as identifying the old species.
The new part of our Genera Plantarum
is or ought to be out but I have not got it yet so cannot send it you by this mail
Mr J. Smith the late Curator of Kew Garden has written
to ask you to mention to you his fern herbarium about which he says he has sent you
a printed circular.
I do not know the collection myself but presume from his having so long and sedulously
worked on the Order that it must be good and authentically named though like all collections
made chiefly in gardens I should not think the labels and origin of the specimens
always to be free from liability to mistake — but if used with caution I think it
must be most valuable to any fern collector — there are no ferns in Lindley's herbarium
— he never collected them — Mr Smith wished me to say also that he thinks his fern
herbarium worth at least £150 and his general herbarium also mentioned in the circular
£60
Yours very sincerely
George Bentham
Dr F. Mueller
