Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1871-81, f. 118. 73.10.08b

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1873-10-08 [73.10.08b]. 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/73-10-08b>, accessed September 11, 2025

Melbourne
8/10/73
This day, dear Mr Bentham, I got a note from Mr Bennett in Sydney,
1
Letter not found. 'Mr. Bennett' is probably Dr. George Bennett, d. 1893, or one of his sons.
who kindly looked up for me Capt Cook's reference to the Banana in the work on his first circumnavigation. I had not the book here accessible. The passage is as follows. p. 145 (anno 1770) while the ship was refitted at Endeavour River.
"This day some of our Gentlemen, who had made an excursion into the woods, brought home the leaves of a plant which was thought to be the same that in the W Indies is called Coccos … In the place where these plants were gathered, grew plenty of the Cabbage-trees and a kind of wild Plantain , the fruit of which was so full of stones as to be scarcely eatable"
2
M's emphasis. The passage occurs in Hawkesworth (1821), vol. 2. p. 145. A small portion of text after 'Cabbage-trees' is omitted in the quotation. Wharton's edition, Cook (1893), p. 295 has:
Sunday 24th [June 1770] … Early in the morning I sent a party of Men into the Country under the direction of Lieutenant Gore to search for refreshments, they return'd about noon with a few Palm Cabbages and a Bunch or 2 of wild Plantains; these last were much Smaller than any I had ever seen, and the Pulp full of small Stones; otherwise they were well tasted.
See Beaglehole (1974), p. 439, for Cook's view of the inaccuracy of Hawkesworth's volumes.
Through Endlichers flora Norfolkiana
3
Endlicher (1833), p. 35.
I was aware of the circumstances of this discovery, also from some fainth
4
faint?
remembrance of the quotation, having in early years read Cooks work. It would have been without proper cause, to have had connected Sir Jos Banks name with this Banana or Plantain, unless he was concerned in the first discovery.
I suppose the plant
5
Musa banksii .
will soon bear flowers at Kew. Then this may be explained, should it be delineated for the Bot. Mag.
6
Musa banksii was not illustrated in the Botanical magazine.
Your regardful
Ferd. von Mueller.
I am doing something more to grasses and
Cyperaceae

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now.
Panicum compositum

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L seems to include R Br's 4
Orthopogon

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s.
Can
Cenchrus inflexus

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be
Danthonia triticoides

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?