The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: Melbourne bot Museum ¶ 15/7/73 ¶ ¶ I have to thank you, dear and venerable Sir, for some new proof-sheets of the new volume, ¶ and it is gratifying to see the work proceed so well. From the enclosed...

Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller. 1871-81, ff. 102-3; 1858-70, ff. 42, 30. 73.07.15a

Plant names

Amperea spartioides
Search for Amperea spartioides in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Aporosa
Search for Aporosa in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Bertya
Search for Bertya in
Beyeria viscosa
Search for Beyeria viscosa in
Bischoffia Javanii
Search for Bischoffia Javanii in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Brachycome
Search for Brachycome in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Capparideae
Search for Capparideae in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Comelyneae
Search for Comelyneae in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Compositae
Search for Compositae in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Eupatorium
Search for Eupatorium in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Euphorbiaceae
Search for Euphorbiaceae in
Fischera
Search for Fischera in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Glumaceae
Search for Glumaceae in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Haemodoraceae
Search for Haemodoraceae in
Laxmannia
Search for Laxmannia in
Malvaceae
Search for Malvaceae in
Neoroepera
Search for Neoroepera in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Petrobium
Search for Petrobium in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Phyllanthus Adami
Search for Phyllanthus Adami in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Phyllanthus Fuenrohrii
Search for Phyllanthus Fuenrohrii in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Phyllanthus Novae Hollandae
Search for Phyllanthus Novae Hollandae in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Phyllanthus lacunarius
Search for Phyllanthus lacunarius in
Phyllanthus stenocladus
Search for Phyllanthus stenocladus in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Phyllanthus trachyspermus
Search for Phyllanthus trachyspermus in
Phyllanthus uberiflorus
Search for Phyllanthus uberiflorus in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Phylopappus
Search for Phylopappus in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Pimelea curvifolia
Search for Pimelea curvifolia in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Pimelea longifolia
Search for Pimelea longifolia in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Pimelea phylicoides
Search for Pimelea phylicoides in
Poranthera corymbosa
Search for Poranthera corymbosa in
Restiaceae
Search for Restiaceae in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Ricinocarpus
Search for Ricinocarpus in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Roepera
Search for Roepera in
Senecio elegans
Search for Senecio elegans in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Siebera
Search for Siebera in
- This website
- Australian Plant Name Index
Taraxacum
Search for Taraxacum in

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1873-07-15 [73.07.15a]. 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/73-07-15a>, accessed September 11, 2025

Melbourne bot Museum

15/7/73

I have to thank you, dear and venerable Sir, for some new proof-sheets of the new volume,

Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6. Printed sheets were sent in the April mail (G. Bentham to M, 8 April 1873) with others following soon afterwards (G. Bentham to M, 15 May 1873 (in this edition as 73-05-15a)).

and it is gratifying to see the work proceed so well. From the enclosed memorandum you will see, how I have placed the , on which I have written for the 62 Fragm. That fascicle will contain also the , which have been much overrated by RBr Nees and Steudel.

B73.08.01, pp. 59-64 and 64-101 respectively; the 'enclosed memorandum' has not been found. See also R. Brown (1810), pp. 243-57; Nees von Esenbeck (1846); and Steudel (1855), vol. 2, pp. 246-66.

While Dr Masters made out about 150 good species of for S. Africa,

Masters (1869a).

I do not think we can admit more than 50 in all Australia, ¾ of these belonging to S.W. Australia.

Bentham (1863-78), vol. 7, pp. 208-46, recognized 70 species.

I hope to finish all by Christmas. That will save you an enormous amount of labor for the 7th vol then. I have also from Dulau already obtained a copy of the new vol. of the Genera, a glorious additional ornament to the pillar of your and Dr Hookers fame.

Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), of which vol. 2, part 1 was published in April 1873 (TL2).

In regard to you will perhaps allow me to remark, that cannot have antecedence to Forsters , so far as I can see. RBr. suppressed Forsters genus erroneously and before he established his had reoccupied the name But that does not invalidate Forsters just and clear priority.

, erected in Asphodeleae by R. Brown (1810), p. 285, has been conserved under the rules of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 2, part 1, pp. 355-6 treated Forster’s genus of 1776 as a synonym of described from St Helena in R. Brown (1817), p. 113 (read February 1816), where Brown wrote 'it will not, I conclude, be considered expedient to recur to Forster's name, which … is connected only with a series of blunders, was abandoned by the author himself, and has since been applied to another genus already generally adopted'. However, Ricket & Stafleu (1959), p. 235, n. 2, under , comment ' R. Brown, Trans. Linn. Soc. 12: 113 (1816), was an illegitimate substitute name for J. R. et G. Forster (1776). The fact that the latter is no longer available has no effect on the illegitimacy of . Brown's name was still-born and can be saved only by conservation.' has also been conserved.

is also truly Australian.

Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 2, part 1, p. 245 described the genus as missing from Australia and Africa.

was established by Walpers .

Bentham & Hooker (1862–83), vol. 2, part 1, p. 507, give M instead of Walpers (1840), p. 507 as the author of Phyllopapus.

I never adopted or used the name, altho' it was taken up by Dr Sonder.

One of the Queensland s has rays of the purest and richest yellow imaginable and always so. I saw that myself in 1856 on Peak Downs.

Bentham & Hooker (1862–83), vol. 2, part 1, p. 264, comment on the colour of the flowers as ‘v. rarissime flavicantes?’.

These exceptional cases do occur, as for instance in an opposite way through Senecio elegans. The arrangement of the is now clear and excellent and must have entailed an enormous amount of work. It will now be easy for all of us, to deal with any

In Phyllanthus of vol. VI I would advise some changes. should be changed to P. stenocladus.

Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, p. 98 treated P. stenocladus as a synonym of P. adami . Both were named by J. Müller in the same publication, one from a female plant, the other from a male of what Bentham considered to be the same species.

My Geneve namesake gave the specific name, devoid of all meaning. It grows on M'Adams Range, so named (rather absurdly) by Capt Stokes, because that range (as seen by myself) is densely strewn with small sharp stones, reminding one of an unfinished Macadamized road, but surely that was a poor reason for the bestowal of the name on the range, and a still poorer for the name of the plant.

The appellation of is still more objectionable in a genus, which is so richly represented in this part of the globe. Fortunately we have already the name to substitute for it.

Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, p. 101.

P. lacunarius, P. Fuenrohrii & P. trachyspermus are all inmates of Victoria. You may consider it a safe rule, to give S. Austr, Vict. & N.S. Wales for all plants, recorded from the Murray desert.

Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, pp. 107-8 listed these species as occurring in NSW but did not include Vic in the locality list.

In former years, when it was so difficult to travel there, I did not burden myself anew with specimens in the different colonial territories, if once the species were collected somewhere. The Murray River is but a narrow one, and only a political and a geographic not a natural boundary, just as a plant, which grows on the Tweed in England is sure to be found also on the opposite side in Scotland.

I have missed in your generic key of the genus Bischoffia, atho' I have sent you from Q. L. I thought also that I had sent you from Q L. a species of Blume's genus .

Bischofia javanica ? Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, pp. 41-4. Bentham claimed that he had not received these genera from M (G. Bentham to M, 24 September 1873); see also B74.03.01, p. 141.

Both Planchon and myself found occasionally more than one flower within the same calycine integument of and I have given a figure of such in my lithograms.

B65.02.06, plate 20.

Accordingly Planchon considered (and probably rightly) the supposed calyx as an involucre. In such a case the very allied genus of has an involucre and the corolla becomes a calyx, notwithstanding its resemblance to that of .

Your ever regardful

Ferd von Mueller

At the whole the genera of seem still too numerous

As a whole … numerous written in margin .

The following fragment of text is filed at RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, f. 42, annotated in an unknown hand 'vol VI', i.e. Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6. It is placed here because the comments are on habitat or distribution data given in the first five sheets (80 pages) of the volume, which, in his letter to M of 8 April 1873, Bentham announced were sent in that mail. They would have arrived after M was told that his position as the Director of the Botanic Garden was to be abolished (C. Hodgkinson to M, 31 May 1873) and that he would have to vacate before 1 July the house he occupied in the Botanic Garden (see Cohn & Maroske (1996)). It is probable that the notes were included here, the earliest known letter to Bentham dated after the arrival of the first sheets, a probability strengthened by the comments made on the second tranche of sheets that appear in the letter, see notes 11-13 above.

p. 2. is not a mountain species.

P. 31. is common in Vict. & S. Austr.

P. 33. occurs in N.S.W. on the Murray River

p. 56. is also a spec of Victoria, occuring in E. Gippsland

p. 64. occurs in many parts of Victoria.

I had no leisure as yet to go through the pages carefully.

The following text is filed at RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, f. 30. It is placed here since it contains comments on genera included in sheets G to I of Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, i.e. pp. 81-128, sent to press in April but not available then to transmit to M, although they were sent soon after (see G. Bentham to M, 8 April 1873 and 15 May 1873 (in this edition as 73-05-15a). M also comments on Bentham & Hooker (1862-84), vol. 2, part 1, also received by July, see M to J Hooker, 14 July 1873 (in this edition as 73-07-14b). M responds to the comment in G. Bentham to M, 15 May 1873 that Hampshire had not arrived. July 1873 is the earliest this fragment could have been written.

The genus was clearly defined by me as , and Dr Müller of Argau with my consent changed the name to Neo , so that I am not without claims on the authorship of that genus.

Although J. Müller (1866), p. 488 attributes authorship of to ‘Müll. Arg. et Ferd Muell.’, Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, p. 116, cites only to 'Mull.Arg.'.

The change is a fortunate one, because Dr Eichler of Kiel has in the Regensburg Flora-Zeitung brought my Capparideous genus again to honor from a single specimen I had left and could give him for further researches on .

M erected Roeperia ( R. cleomoides ) in in B57.01.01, p. 15, but the name was preoccupied by a genus in the erected in Sprengel (1826). In his paper on floral structure, A. Eichler (1865) included a section on Capparidaceae, pp. 545-59, but no entry on Roeperia has been identified here or in other papers by him in Flora up to July 1873. In B75.12.01, p. 174, M wrote that it had been restored to its generic position in Eichler's monograph (See A. Eichler (1875-78), vol. 2, pp. 207, 208n, 211).

I met Roeper personally in 1846. He resides in Rostock, my birthplace.

Is there any objection to call the paleae of simply bracteolae, or do you think, that they do not stand sufficiently regularly for that term.

See Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 2, part I, p. 163.

abounds in Victoria. "Corner inlet" is part of Wilson's promontory in Victoria. I suppose all your Australian s must now become s.

In Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 2, part 1, p. 464, Gay's 1827 was recognized as a genus in Compositeae, predating Reichenbach's 1828 Sieberia in used in Bentham (1863-78), vol .3, pp. 351-7, where Bentham had treated as a partial synonym.

I trust the Hampshire will at last have come safely with the &c

The case sent per Hampshire (see fn. 17, above) included the (Notebook recording despatch of plants for Flora Australiensis, RB, MSS M44, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne).

Let me hope you are well and strong again. May you live in your glory to an Humboldtian age.

Is as a species defined by Haller? if so, how does he call it. Weber in Wiggers primit flor Holsat (of which rare work I possess a copy) named i[t] as a genus & species well in 1780.

See Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 2, part1, p. 522. See also Haller (1742), vol. 1, p. 739, and Wiggers (1780), p. 56.