Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M4, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 68.02.23

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

George Bentham to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1868-02-23. 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/68-02-23>, accessed September 11, 2025

25 Wilton Place
London S.W
Feby 23 1868
My dear Sir
I received the day before yesterday yours of the 21 Decr You say nothing about your health so that I hope you are deriving permanent benefit from your trip to King George's Sound.
1
King George Sound, WA.
I have much to thank you for the trouble you have taken about getting the £100 for the 4th vol. sent.
2
The payment due to Bentham from the Victorian Government for each volume of the Flora australiensis .
I duly received it on Thursday last.
With regard to the commencing printing I had wished to do so immediately after finishing
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in the hopes of getting the volume through the press before I leave town in summer and I have now so nearly finished that Order that I should have begun in a week or ten days but as you wish me to await the arrival of the box per Superb which you tell me is already despatched I shall do so. I have also to wait for Sonder's
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which ought to have been here before now and which I am daily expecting, for there are a few of his which I am in doubt about.
3
Sonder apologized to Bentham for the late sending of the specimens, which 'were in the wrong place'; 'the contributions of Dr. Mueller are not present. Because you will get these direct from Dr Mueller you will be finished without those on my part' (W. Sonder to G. Bentham, 7 March 1868; RBG Kew, GEB1/9 George Bentham Papers, Correspondence, vol. 9, Sabine-Sykes).
I hope the remainder of your
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are by this time on their way that there may be no ultimate delay in finishing the volume. The
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must as you say be reserved for the 5th vol. which I hope I may live to work out. Now that I have got into the Orders contained in Brown's Prodromus
4
R. Brown (1810).
I see still greater urgency in going through the identification which present circumstances favour, and which I consider the important part of my work. With regard to the descriptions and arrangement, although it is that which takes up my time, I know well that with the advantages you possess you will be able to do it much more satisfactorily in such works as your Victorian plants but the identification of old species can only be done here. Brown's have been very much mistaken — partly from not having the plants he described and attributing his diagnoses to those which came nearest — partly from the insufficiency of short diagnoses when new species came to be compared — in a few instances (in two at least) from misprints in Nees's edition of the Prodromus (M) for (T)
5
That is, R. Brown (1825-34), vol. 3. The location indicators are given on pp. xii-xiii; cf. pp. vi-vii in the original edition.
or vice versâ. Of the genus Leucopogon there are at least 4 very distinct ones which I find in no collection but Brown's L. alternifolius from West Cape Howe near KGS,
6
King George Sound, WA.
L. deformis and L. appressus from Port Jackson and L. flexifolius from Queensland besides two doubtful ones of the leptospermoides set Epacris sparsa from Grose river
7
NSW.
is also very unlike any other Epacris that I have seen
I believe I have regularly announced the arrival of every box as I received them. None have failed and there is now only the one by the Superb still to come. I trust I shall hear of the safe arrival of the box I returned which was sent by the Wave of Life containing
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Goodenovieae

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etc. I shall return the
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as soon as I shall have gone through the supplements to come by the Superb. I have done all except Sprengelia
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and the small genera allied to them. I shall have about 250
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of which 116 Leucopogons They have given me a great deal of trouble owing to the minuteness of the ovaries which I have had to examine in so many specimens of each species.
The proof of XLIII of your Fragmenta
8
B67.12.01.
and your specimens of
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and
Sprengelia patricia

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came yesterday I immediately examined the former which is an interesting novelty (Some specimens of Drummonds without flower may be the same) and must I suppose be referred as you have done to Monotoca although in about a dozen flowers I opened I invariably found
9
.
two cells and ovules. But the corolla and other characters are those of Monotoca. [The] character of the solitary ovule is otherwise not absolute for in
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I always found only one ovule although from the corolla etc it must be retained in Leucopogon. A certain degree of unisexuality occurs in many
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and even in this
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, in some of the flowers examined the anthers were small and semi-abortive, whilst in others they were larger and more perfect.
You do not appear to be aware of Stschegleev's description of a number of Drummonds
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in the Moscow Bulletin of 1859.
10
Stschegleev (1859).
It is excessively difficult to hunt up the litterature of modern systematic botany and I much fear that I may have passed over a number of published species.
Ever my dear Sir
Yours most sincerely
George Bentham
Dr F. Mueller