Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M3, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 72.11.19

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

George Bentham to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1872-11-19. 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/72-11-19>, accessed September 11, 2025

25, WILTON PLACE. S.W.
Novr 19 /72
My dear Sir
Your box of
Orchideae

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has reached us all safe as well as the separate parcel. I have just finished
Coniferae

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and am now at
Cycadeae

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which will take me another day or two I shall finish up the
Euphorbiaceae

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of which I have your supplemental parcels to go through and then the
Artocarpeae

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which I had put off in hopes of getting Bureau's monograph in the Prodromus
1
Bureau (1873); see notes to M to G. Bentham, 18 March 1872 (in this edition as 72-03-18a) and G. Bentham to M, 17 December 1872.
but I fear there is no chance of having it in time I shall therefore go through them and then take to the
Orchideae

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. The Dicotyledons I have for the volume will not I think be above 450 so that the
Orchideae

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will not be enough and I should be obliged by your sending as soon as possible at least all the Monocotyledons with the ovary inferior
Irideae

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Amaryllideae

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Scitamineae

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Dioscordeae

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etc. — and even those may not be enough without the liliaceous group for my volumes contain at least 1200 species I hope to begin printing as soon as ever I have done with the proofs of Genera Plantarum
2
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 2, part 1.
which I trust will be early in January — but the checking the references in the proofs of Genera takes up a great deal of time.
A box is being packed for you with
Urticeae

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Coniferae

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& small Orders returned
I found much blundering in the Nomenclature of Casuarina — Miquel cannot have read Aiton's short characters his vaginis multifidis — septemfidis and quadrifidis
3
Miquel (1865); Aiton (1810-13), vol. 3, pp 320-1.
are clear enough his three species are stricta (quadrivalvis Labill.) equisetifolia and torulosa as you pointed out
4
B67.07.05, pp 16-20.
— why Miquel referred stricta to distyla I cannot make out. I have seen Aiton's own specimens.
I am puzzled about your
Ephedra arborea

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5
Listed among 'Species dubia' by Parlatore (1868a), p. 359, presumably citing M's herbarium name. MEL 269229 is a specimen ( Calycopeplus casuarinoides) with M's 1856 field labels 'Ephedra ? arborea | Ferd Mueller | foot of newcastle Range' and 'Ephedra?| Arbor 20 – 40' | between the Gilbert & Lynd'. That is, collected in early October 1856 in Qld (see A. Gregory (1858), pp. 110-13).
which is certainly not an Ephedra. The fructification on the specimens is distorted by grubs but it appears to me to be most probably a third species of
Calycolpus

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6
Calycopeplus? See Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, p. 54, citing B66.08.21.
— however it must remain uncertain till specimens in flower or fruit have been received.
I wish you would get us up some paper for the Linnean Society — say on the distribution of genera and species in Australia and their relation to fossil plants there found
Yours very sincerely
George Bentham
Baron F. v. Mueller