Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M4, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 68.01.18

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

George Bentham to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1868-01-18. 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/68-01-18>, accessed April 30, 2025

25 Wilton Place
London S.W.
Jany 18 1868
My dear Sir
Two days after I had despatched my last I received your most interesting letter of the 3d Novr I was exceedingly glad to see that you had so well recovered your health and trust you will now be able to resume your valuable labours without further detriment to yourself but for that you must take work in moderation and not attempt more than you have strength for — for fear of breaking down altogether. Your observations on the Western Flora are important and will give great interest to the next parts of your Fragmenta. I know very well that there are great differences in the form and direction of the lobes of the corolla in Stylidium and that very good characters might be drawn from them — unfortunately it is so very rarely that they can be safely described from dried specimens on account of their extreme delicacy that they are very little available for any but resident botanists Your
Levenhookia stylidioides

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that you send is a very interesting though not a new species It was not in the Hookerian herbarium It is however the L. pauciflora of Huegel's Enumeration
1
Bentham (1837c), p. 74.
and besides Huegel's original specimen I had been enabled to draw up the description for the Flora Austral. from a specimen gathered by Oldfield on Mount Clarence
2
WA.
in your collection and from an excellent set of specimens of Collie's in Brown's herbarium.
3
Alexander Collie specimens in the herbarium of Robert Brown (1773-1858) at the British Museum.
Stylidium perminutum

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is Hooker's S. perpusillum with the remarkable stigma and all the other characters of S. calcaratum except the total absence of the spur — which is exceedingly variable but appears to be always present in calcaratum.
Your
Stylideae

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Goodenovieae

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and
Campanulaceae

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are on their way to you in the "Wave of Life" I understand that the bill of lading has been sent to you from Kew I have been steadily at work (with the exception of a weeks absence at Christmas) at
Epacrideae

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but cold weather and dark days interfere more with the old than with the young and I have not got on as fast as I hoped I have however done
Styphelia

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Coleanthera

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(
Michiea

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)
Astroloma

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Conostephium

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Brachyloma

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Cyathodes

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Melichrus

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and
Lissanthe

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and am far advanced in
Leucopogon

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and as far as I have gone I really do not see why these groups should not be kept up as genera now that they have been so universally adopted Of the minor genera I have no objection to reducing
Soleniscia

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to a section of
Styphelia

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Pentataphrus

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Mesotriche

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and
Stenanthera

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to
Astroloma

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Conostephiopsis

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to
Conostephium

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Lobopogon

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to
Brachyloma

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for that disposes of almost monotypic genera without spoiling the circumscription of the larger groups and without much innovation. But if
Styphelieae

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be reduced to a genus
Styphelia

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Browns genera must be adoped as good sections with the same circumscription and then the conversion of them from genera to sections seems to me to be a mere matter of form offering no advantage but entailing great practical inconvenience in the overloading of the synonymy and the changing so many wellknown names. Had the tribe been hitherto kept together as a genus the reasons you give would have gone far towards preventing the breaking it up — but that process has now been gone through more than half a century back and been sanctioned by all the most eminent of subsequent botanists and retrogression is in my opinion now too late.
4
See Lucas (2003), pp. 269-272.
I have safely received the remaining
Epacrideae

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sent off in your absence by the Lincolnshire — and shall soon be looking out for the Orders following
Epacrideae

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of which other Orders I have only as yet two or three parcels
Ever yours very sincerely
George Bentham
Dr F. Mueller FRS
Yours of the 26th Nov this instant recd
5
M. to G. Bentham, 26 November 1867.
— I can only say that I am too old to defer the Flora Australiensis if ever I am to do it which I must do to fulfil my engagements to the other Governments as well as yours. Your materials are of course of the greatest use to me but if you are unable to send them I must do as well as I can without. As to the Genera
6
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83).
if nothing else it is so heavy an expense to us that we cannot afford to go on much quicker besides Hooker is young enough to hope to see the end of that which I am not. Whatever I undertake I wish to go through with I promised if possible to publish a volume a year of the Flora and though I cannot quite do that I must keep as near as possible to it.