Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M3, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 77.06.27a

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

George Bentham to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1877-06-27 [77.06.27a]. 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/77-06-27a>, accessed September 11, 2025

25, WILTON PLACE. S.W.
London
June 27 /77
My dear Sir
I send by this post four sheets of the new vol. of Flora Australiensis
1
Bentham (1863-78), vol. 7.
the printing goes on but slowly though the copy is all in the printer's hands to the end of
Cyperaceae

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— the delay however will I hope enable me to have the
Gramineae

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ready in time — though they take me longer than I expected The Order has been thrown into such confusion by Nees
2
Bentham (1882), pp. 17-18 reviews Nees von Esenbeck's work on
Gramineae

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, and although Nees 'described with great care the grasses of various tropical and other extra-European regions', Bentham concluded that his work caused problems because 'he worked up the grasses of each country separately, without paying sufficient attention to the cosmopolitan nature of so many species, which thus appear under different names in his different works'.
& by Steudel
3
Steudel (1855). In his introduction to the Australian
Gramineae

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, Bentham described this work as a 'hasty and careless compilation' (Bentham (1863-78), vol. 7, p. 450); that view is expanded in Bentham (1882), p. 18, where the strictures are very severe.
that notwithstanding the great help I get from General Munro I have great difficulty in identifying species and in fixing some kind of limits to genera
Your ferns are I believe in town and will I hope be at Kew in a day or two. I shall very soon send off a box of
Gramineae

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— but as yet I have only finished the
Paniceae

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and
Andropogoneae

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Many thanks for the completion of vol VIII of your Fragmenta
4
In an earlier letter Bentham wrote: 'I have your Fragmenta complete except the title page and index to vol VIII which I have never had — have you a copy to spare? in order that I may bind the volume' (G. Bentham to M, 30 April 1877).
— the want of the Index was a great impediment to consulting it. When I have published this volume of the Flora I hope you will prepare a methodical supplement with all your additions. This will give you the opportunity of giving the characters of the genera as you understand them where your views differ from mine I trust you will at the same time give a sketch of the physical features and characteristic floras of the different parts of Australia which no-one is in a position for doing as well as yourself. With regard to the general geographical distribution of the Australian Flora there is but very little to add or alter from what Hooker gave in his preface to the Tasmanian Flora
5
J. Hooker (1860).
which makes me the less regret that I have no time to work it out notwithstanding the attention I have long paid to the subject
Yours very sincerely
George Bentham
Baron F. von Mueller
6
Though three later letters from Bentham to M, either whole or in part, have been found elsewhere, this is Bentham's last letter in the collection held in the Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. The final sheet in the folder is a clipping from the Argus, 22 September 1884, p. 5, in the column 'By Cable From our own correspondent', recording Bentham's death:
DEATH OF MR. GEORGE BENTHAM.
LONDON, Sept. 19.
The death is announced, at an advanced age, of Mr. George Bentham, the distinguished botanist, and the author, in conjunction with Baron von Mueller, of Flora Australiensis.