Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M4, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 67.12.19

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

George Bentham to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1867-12-19. 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/67-12-19>, accessed June 19, 2025

25, WILTON PLACE. S.W.
Decr 19/67
My dear Sir
I am very glad to hear of your trip to King George's Sound I hope you will have derived enjoyment as well as health from it.
I think I reported in my last the arrival of the
Epacrideae

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etc pr Sussex and pr Great Britain and I have just attacked that Order.
1
G. Bentham to M, 17 November 1867.
The
Goodenovieae

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have taken me longer than I expected having had to analyse the ovarium of every species and often of many specimens. I find in Dampiera great and constant differences in the ovulum which make good sections combined with inflorescence. I fear however I must make a genus (
Verreauxia

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) of D. Reinwardtii and D. Verreauxii which have not the characteristic flowers of Dampiera and yet will neither go into Scaevola nor Goodenia — De Vriese's genera are all as bad as the rest of his work.
Euthales

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must evidently go back to
Velleia

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where Labillardière put it. The calyx tube is always quite free whilst the corolla is adnate In
Goodenia barbata

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etc the calyx tube is exceedingly short but adnate and the lobes are adnate some way up.
Euthales

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has also the inflorescence of
Velleya

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2
Velleya

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is an orthographic variant of
Velleia

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.
I shall carefully go through your observations on
Epacrideae

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. I do not like suppressing a genus so universally adopted as
Leucopogon

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— and if it is retained as a section and proves at all a natural one I cannot but think it better to leave it as a genus — there is a great difference between making a genus and keeping up one already made. If it can be done with propriety I shall have the less scruple in doing so as I see you have provided for it by keeping up the section and by naming all your new species as
Leucopogon

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s as well as as
3
word repeated in MS.
Styphelias

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. The evil of the double synonymy is thus already created and whether a group be a section or genus is in many cases purely arbitrary — and in matter of doubt botanists at large would rather follow Brown than any of us.
4
Robert Brown (1773-1858). See Lucas (2003), pp. 269–72.
As I said before I hope to begin printing at the end of Feby so as to get the volume out before I leave town in summer. You would much oblige me by sending the remaining
Monopetalae

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— I am having the
Stylideae

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Campanulaceae

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&
Goodenovieae

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packed up and shall send them off I hope in a few days They are in excellent condition The mould I mentioned as having appeared on one apparently rather fresh specimen only extended to 3 or 4 sheets and appears to have been got rid of by changing the paper
5
G. Bentham to M, 19 October 1867.
Yours very sincerely
George Bentham
Dr F. Mueller FRS