Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, ff. 430-1. 70.04.22

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1870-04-22. 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/70-04-22>, accessed September 11, 2025

22/4/70.
As far as sparehours occasionally permit, dear Mr Bentham, I work quietly away on
Monocotyledoneae

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, preparatory for your work, but these sparehours are and have been much diminished in number through the ordeal, through which I am passing so cruelly and undeservedly in my department. Could I have foreseen recent treatments & the behaviour to me on a former occasion, I would and could never have thought of accepting such an appointment, but after 17 years work in the Department (and how have I worked!) and after spending all my private property in it, I cannot sever myelf from it without utter ruin. There is some hope, however, that I will come like a Phoenix out of the ashes.
Mr Moore has sent some more Lord Howes Island plants.
Carmichaelia

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,
Calophyllum

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& some others are interesting. There is also a new probably scrophularinous plant among them, which some early day I must examine. Zanthoxylon does not agree with Z. Blackburnia & I have named it as a new species & will introduce it into the new number of the fragmenta with a few other notes on
Xanthoxyleae

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. In examining the Palms I have ventured to unite the
Veitchias

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, of which one occurs in Howes Island with
Kentia

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.
1
See B70.04.01, p. 101.
If it is to be kept apart, then also a new genus on one or two other of the Palms of that isle must be formed, to which the name
Europhoenix

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2
Europhoenix

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not found (IPNI, accessed 30 June 2020).
might be given. I communicated with Wendland on the subject.
3
Letter not found.
From the Liverpool River I have a new very tall Palm, a new
Kentia

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.
4
Presumably
Kentia

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wendlandiana (B70.04.01, p. 102).
To the new pages of the Flora of Australia I look forward with the utmost interest. I would like to live to see the work finished, but, alas, that is very doubtful, especially if I am treated here with so little consideration. Not that there is a want of general appreciations of my labor, but a few dastardly individuals unscrupously try to mislead public opinion, and an officer like myself, under the Civil service regulations is prevented to defend himself! The reports of the Department are hardly ever read, not even in Europe. Hence in not a single public European journal seen by me is the slightest notice taken of my Departmental Document of 1869, except by Regel in Petersburg, as far as I have seen.
5
The 'Departmental Document' is presumably B69.07.03; it was, however, also published at about the same time, though without comment, in the Journal of botany (B69.07.01). Regel published a very favorable review of M's report in Gartenflora (1870) pp. 61-2. In the copy in the library of the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, there is a large tick beside Regel's comment about M: 'Nach den neusten Berichten scheint es, dass seine Verdienste dort nicht die verdiente Anerkennung gefunden haben' [By the latest reports it seems that his merits have not found there the recognition they deserve].
Veitch, also when he was here, some years ago, did — perhaps unwittingly — by his journal remarks great injustice and damage to my establishment.
6
Gardeners' chronicle, 7 April 1866, p. 316. Although the general tone of Veitch's account of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens is positive, the following passage may have been seen, out of context, as damaging: 'The Melbourne Botanic Gardens ... [are] ... under the directorship of Dr Mueller, the celebrated botanist, so well known in Europe in connection with the flora of Australia. The Melbourne Botanic Gardens, like almost everything else [in Melbourne] are in a state of formation; no portion of them can be said to be finished or in order. From this cause they do not present an attractive appearance, and contrast but poorly with those of Sydney.' See Veitch (1866), entry for 1 November 1865.
However I will not further trouble you with these matters; but what little I said will show you, that under almost unparalleled struggles, it is not always in my power to do quite as much for you as I wished. The sorting and comparing of so many thousand specimens for each volume of the flora involves however far more work, than would readily be apparent from its pages.
Fifteen
Monimieae

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in Australia!
7
See G. Bentham to M, 17 February 1870.
That is glorious.
Trusting you remain well & will take that utmost care of your health, which your age renders imperative I remain
your deeply regardful
Ferd von Mueller
Could Walter Hills new genus of
Cycadeae

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, described in the Gardeners Chronicle
8
Catakidozamia hopei, in Gardeners' chronicle, 25 November 1865, p. 1107.
and not mentioned by Miquel in the Prodromus of DC
9
Miquel must be an error on M's part; A. de Candolle (1868) himself wrote the section on Cycadaceae in his Prodromus. The treatment of Cycadaceae by Miquel (1861) predated Hill's description.
— be perhaps merely
Cycas media

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, which, as pointed out in my report on the Burdekin plants, grows to very great hight
10
B60.13.12, p. 18.
Drimys Howeana

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may be Baillon's
Drymis crassifolia

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.
There seems to be no reason whatever to reject my adjective "acuaria" for the new Casuarina.
11
M described
Casuarina acuaria

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in B67.07.02, p. 212. Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, p. 202 accepted the name but cited B67.07.05, p. 16 as the description.
I find it in my old latin Lexicon. Far less classic words are used even by Linné for plants: e.g. ranunculosis &c &c
12
There seems ... ranunculosis &c &c are marginal notes on the margins of ff. 431 and 432.