Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M4, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 69.11.25

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

George Bentham to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1869-11-25. 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/69-11-25>, accessed September 11, 2025

25, WILTON PLACE. S.W.
Novr 25 /69
My dear Sir
I had intended writing to you by the last mail but I was at the time laid up by an attack of sciatica which quite put a stop to my usual occupations for two or three weeks. I have now resumed work and have got through the small orders of
Plantagineae

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Nyctagineae

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and
Phytolaccaceae

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and have almost finished
Chenopodiaceae

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which have given me a great deal of trouble and taken up much more time than I expected — and now short days and additional care I am obliged to take in bad weather prevents my advancing so rapidly as I could wish. I shall have about a hundred species of
Chenopodiaceae

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most of which have required very careful analyses of several specimens, and I am very much puzzled about genera especially among the
Camphorosmeae

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. Moquin
1
Moquin-Tandon (1849a). Bentham (1863-78), vol. 5, pp. 150-208 makes specific comments about Moquin-Tandon's determinations of many species in
Chenopodiaceae

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, often in the context of references to R. Brown (1810), pp. 405-12.
had not good enough materials to ascertain the constancy of the characters on which he has relied, several of which will not bear scrutiny and he has mistaken several of Brown's species for want of authentic specimens. I have now only a few
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es still to do which will take me two or three days and I shall then pack up a box to return to you which would have been despatched before this if it had not been for the interruption above-mentioned.
The boxes per Norfolk arrived safely at Kew two or three weeks since — I have also to thank you for your letter received pr last mail
2
No known letter from M to Bentham earlier in 1869 mentions Anisomeles  or
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, but the dates suggest that they might have been among the 'few others apparently unknown' included in M to G. Bentham, 6 September 1869 (in this edition as 69-09-06a).
with specimens of two sp. of Anisomeles (probably varieties of the A. salvifolia) and one of
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whether new or not I cannot tell all being fragments only. Many of your numerous correspondents contribute largely by good satisfactory specimens — but some of them send such wretched scraps that they do more harm than good. For travellers in difficult desert explorations like those of McDouall Stuart's and similar expeditions this may be well excused but that the gentlemen resident in Queensland and other settled districts should send to you little sprigs with a single flower or bud or with none at all is what I think you ought to remonstrate against — guessing at such puzzles only leads into errors, of which you will find but too many in my Flora even where there is not that excuse. Dallachy and others of your own collectors as well as some of your correspondents send on the other hand satisfactory specimens which it is a pleasure to have to work upon.
Ever yours sincerely
George Bentham
Dr F. Mueller