Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M3, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 73.07.11

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

George Bentham to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1873-07-11. 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/73-07-11>, accessed September 12, 2025

25, WILTON PLACE. S.W.
London
July 11 /73
My dear Sir
I have now finished the Monocotyledons with inferior ovary and your specimens are packed up and will be sent off in a day or two I trust you will receive them all safe.
In the box of
Orchideae

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which I returned I believe before I received the last sheet of your Fragmenta I may have left your
Dendrobium bicuphum

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1
dicuphum?
under the name of D bigibbum I had described it under the latter name and although I afterwards perceived it was different from this Bot. Mag. plant I had not yet revised the genus finally and forgot to alter the name.
2
i.e. on the returned herbarium sheet. D. dicuphum is included as a separate species in Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, p. 277.
The box per Somersetshire arrived safe — the
Scitamineae

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were already in type, so I left the descriptions as I had drawn them up from your sheet of Fragmenta which I had received in time
The sixth vol. is now in print to the middle of
Orchideae

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— there had been some delay at Whitsuntide with the printers and they omitted to send me the clean sheets of what is printed off in time for the mail so I must send them by next mail
Dioscorea lucida

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Br. is evidently a Roxburghia and apparently identical with R. javanica Miq.
3
In Bentham (1863-78), vol. 7, p. 1, R. javanica is attributed to Kunth.
Brown's
Calostemma alba

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,
4
C. album?
and
Conostylis breviscapa

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are both very distinct species — the former I have seen nowhere else, the latter only from Baxter's collection
5
William Baxter fl. 1820s-1830s.
besides Brown's
Hypoxis marginata

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is also only among Brown's
6
The species mentioned are described in R. Brown (1810), pp. 298, 310 and 289 respectively.
Campynema

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must go as an exceptionaly hexandrous genus of
Irideae

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of which it has the characteristic centrifugal inflorescence extrorse anthers and divided style — none of them occurring in
Amaryllideae

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of which
Hypoxideae

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are surely no more than a tribe.
I am afraid you will not agree with me in many of my generic and other circumscriptions, but in these matters there is no positive test and every one acts according to his own convictions
Your box exactly held the remainder of the Monocotyledons with inferior ovary. There remain
Calectasia

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&
Kingia

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which I presume you sent by mistake as there is much to come before them. However I hope that all will come in to the 7th vol. which will close the work if I live to work it out
Yours very sincerely
George Bentham
Baron Mueller