Ferdinand von Mueller

Melbourne bot. Garden

28/1/73

Herewith, dear Dr Hooker, I beg to send for your or Mr Benthams superior opinion a plant from Central Australia, just brought by Mr Ernest Giles, which may constitute perhaps a new genus of Lineae, turning also somewhat to Stackhousiaceae and the apocarpous Caryophylleae of the ficoid & phytolacceous series. It is the only genus new to Australia, discovered by Mr Giles,

1

Listed without description as Macgregoria racemosa in B73.04.01, p. 129; see also M to G. Bentham, 28 January 1873 (in this edition as 73-01-28b).

altho' that brave and able exploring traveller found several new species in the vicinity of the great Salt-lake, Lake Amadeus, discovered by him. His map and a print of his journal

2

No evidence of the receipt of a map or journal can be found at Kew. For the journal, see E. Giles (1873). The map was probably a copy of that sent with M to A. Petermann, 28 January 1873 (in this edition as 73-01-28d), an early version of the maps published by Petermann in 1873, 'Originalkarte von E. Giles' Entdeckungsreise in Central-Australien, 1872' [Original map of E. Giles's journey of exploration in Centrl Australia, 1872] (online at https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-232432495 ) and by the SA Surveyor General in 1874, 'Map of the country west of the telegraph line in the interior of Australia explored by Mr E. Giles' (online at https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-231439545 ).

will be sent to you by the next mail. Should my surmise as to the ordinal position of the genus prove correct, then the diagnosis now sent, may be of use for such supplemental notes to your new important volume of genera as you may again append to it. Meanwhile I shall not publish the manuscript of this plant, as I have not really the leisure and the tranquillity of mind, while my whole future is at stake during this cruel persecution of Mr Edw Wilson's and other people here, to collect my thoughts sufficiently. Indeed I may have overlooked in my search a plant, common in some other part of the globe, and which 25 years ago may have been well known to me in Europe but which since may have passed completely from my memory