The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 23/9/76. ¶ ¶ Is it not likely, my dear Mr Bentham, that Acacia Farnesiana must be regarded as of eastern Origin. It is clearly the shrub, which Dioscorides & Theophrastos knew from Egypt and Kappadoc...

Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew Correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1871-81, f. 185. 76.09.23c

Plant names

Acacia Farnesiana
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Ceratonia Siliqua
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1876-09-23 [76.09.23c]. 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/76-09-23c>, accessed September 11, 2025

23/9/76.

Is it not likely, my dear Mr Bentham, that must be regarded as of eastern Origin. It is clearly the shrub, which Dioscorides & Theophrastos knew from Egypt and Kappadocia.

Annotated by Bentham:

Cappadocian [Acacia] of Dioscorides from his vague description is probably the plant to which it is referred by Mathioli comm. Diosc. 176 [i.e. Mattioli (1565)] where it is figured and which is evidently the [Cytisus].

The Aegyptian Dioscorides or [illegible word] Aegyptus of Theophrast[os] is probably correctly referred by Bodaeus in his Commentary on Thephrast 1644, 310 as the Acacia arabica or nilotica which he there figured [i.e. Theophrastus (1644)].

See G. Bentham to M, 30 April 1877.

It is moreover, just such a plant, as the Spaniards in their conquest would carry with them, like , and it would disseminate itself even easier than the Ceratonia.

Regardfully

Ferd. von Mueller.