Document information

Physical location:

University of Florence, Science Library: Botany, Archives, Beccari 12/32. 80.02.05

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Odoardo Beccari, 1880-02-05. 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/80-02-05>, accessed September 11, 2025

5/2/80.
Your consignment of Sumatra-plants, dear Dr Beccari, has arrived safely,
1
See M to O. Beccari, 24 December 1879 (in this edition as 79-12-24b).
and I thank you for your kindness of contributing them to my collections, which were hitherto poor in material from Sumatra.
2
Australia's Virtual Herbarium ( http://avh.chah.org.au/ , accessed 14 October 2013) lists 58 specimens collected by Beccari in Indonesia (all but three from Sumatra; the others are 1875 collections from Irian Jaya).
I am aware that as a rule travellers in distant foreign lands cannot obtain the various species during one season in a complete state of specimens, and so you fo[u]nd
3
Editorial addition: sheet damaged.
it in Sumatra. But thus it will be often also difficult to fix the species from your specimens, altho' the genus can be ascertained in most cases. For instance your Sloanea may be S. Sigun, altho' the capsule is 2-3-celled and the prickles are shorter; your specimens make it not quite sure, whether these distinctions are specific, otherwise I intended to name the Sumatra species in honor of yourself.
4
The only Sloanea named by Mueller after 1880 is S. forbesii (IPNI, accessed 14 November 2020); see B92.11.02, p. 111, and a fuller description in B93.11.04, p. 323.
Kurz (Forest flora of Burma I, 162)
5
Kurz (1877).
gives Tenasserim also as a locality of
Echinocarpus Sigun

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, hence it may well extend also to Sumatra. I may incidentally observe that the four Australian species establish completely the transit from Sloanea to the subgenus Echinocarpus.
It seems to me, my dear Doctor, that in very many cases the sacrifice of time, required for a critically accurate examination of your Sumatra plants, would be out of proportion to results, unless along with them also Borneo — & Papua — species could be examined. Moreover Miquel has given already, as you are aware, a very extensive list of Sumatra-plants,
6
Miquel (1855-9)
and while I perhaps described the probably few new species in the set, received from you, so far as this can be done from the specimens, the same plants may pass into your Malesia or other publications simultaneously. Your 476, although without fruit, is
Lycopodium volubile

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Forster. Have you a few fragments of your
Palmeria

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to spare for comparison?
It is a pity, that you could not have sent me the second set of your
Leguminosae

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,
Myrtaceae

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&
Rubiaceae

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on loan , as the Museum requires only the first set . Could you not at all events send me all your
Albizzia

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s &
Proteaceae

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for elaboration as they would not be numerous & as they interest me much as an Australian worker, and could you spare duplicates of Signor D'Albertis's
7
Luigi Maria d'Albertis.
last Papuan Collection?
Regardfully your
Ferd von Mueller
I hope to send you soon a case with dried plants of Australia for your Museum
8
Written in central margin between pp 2 and 3.