The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 28/4/85 ¶ ¶ Let me thank you, dear Mr Dyer, for sending me the Kew-Report for 1882, ¶ the Museum-Guide ¶ and Mess. Bower & Vines practical Botany, ¶ all of value here in a variety of ways. ¶ I am...

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Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1882-90, f. 144. 85.04.28a

Plant names

Coniferae
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Cupressinae
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Cycadeae
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Fitzroya
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Lycopodiaceae
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Myoporum brevipes
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Ophioglosseae
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Phylloglossum
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Welwitchia
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to William Thiselton-Dyer, 1885-04-28 [85.04.28a]. 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/85-04-28a>, accessed September 11, 2025

28/4/85

Let me thank you, dear Mr Dyer, for sending me the Kew-Report for 1882,

J. Hooker (1884a).

the Museum-Guide

Oliver (1875).

and Mess. Bower & Vines practical Botany,

Bower & Vines (1885-87), vol. 1.

all of value here in a variety of ways.

See M to J. Hooker, 27 January 1885.

I am obliged also for the specimen of for my Monography.

See M to J. Hooker, 31 October 1884. M was working on B86.08.05.

The complete morphology and history of the development of should be very interesting, considering the odd position, which that genus occupies between and . I cannnot however befriend myself with the idea of and being placed near , notwithstanding the gigantic fossil forms of the latter. and are so truely dicotyledoneous as they could possibly be; and when we come to the gnetaceous forms and even , which Sir Joseph so brilliantly illustrated, we see that they ought to be kept with other Dicotyledon[e]s and have only external resemblances to spore-bearing plants. I look on them neither as having absolutely naked ovules; and traces of a stigmatic apparatus may be found even among the , e.g. .

M is reacting to the view of the morphology and development of , and , especially the reproductive systems, as represented by Bower and Vines, and on the systematic relationships implied by the sequence used in the text. (Bower and Vines do not include practical exercises on the cycads.) See Maroske (2006) for M's views on the systematic arrangment of plants.

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller

I can send more Phylloglosum tubers, should you not succeed in growing the lot forwarded.