Ferdinand von Mueller

26/[7]/86

1

The month number has been overwritten; the annotation supports the reading of ‘7’. Annotated to left of date by Thiselton-Dyer: Prof. O. I have briefly answd. this.[letter not found] Mr Baker can do so in detail if he likes. W.T.T.D 4/9/86.

See also M to O. Beccari, 26 July 1886 (in this edition as 86-07-26c).

A day after I despatched to you my last letter, dear Mr Dyer,

2

Almost certainly M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 21 July 1886 (in this edition as 86-07-21a).

I received from Dr Beccari the concluding part of the second & the commencing part of the third volume of his admirable “Malesia”.

3

Beccari (1877-90).

In the newest of the two, both now received together, I see an elucidation of Papuan Ferns !

4

Beccari (1877-90), vol. 3, pp. 30-55 deals with the ferns and lycopods of New Guinea, including Papua, and contains Baker's descriptions of new species.

This is the first notice, I have of this undertaking; and I can now better understand, why your zealous pteridologist

5

J. G. Baker. For Kew’s reaction to M’s sending ferns to Luerssen, see notes to M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 17 February 1886.

was so sorry, that he did not get, what went to Prof. Luerssen. Had he or you only said a word to me in any letter of this task when he was engaging on it, I could have easily induced Prof Luerssen, to hand temporarely over to Mr Baker what I sent him, though very little additionally would have been gained thereby. Moreover as to me here, being comparatively near to New Guinea, variously collections would and do come from time to time, I could have sent my own Papuan ferns on loan for Mr Bakers essays, as I did with my Australian Normal-collections for Mr Bentham during 17 years, and Mr Baker could then have kept, what he wanted particularly for Kew. But really how am I to know this? as neither he nor Beccari told me, and I did not see any public notice about this forthcoming review of the Papuan ferns at Kew in any journals, that came before me. I am not surprised, that Mr Baker made some alterations in Cesati’s and my naming of N.G. ferns, as he and I may have had before us inaccurately named Indian specimens for comparison, and to these we both may have trusted too implicitly. In a few cases I do however not concur in Mr Bakers views as now expressed, the generic limitations being left out of account, as he would like of course, to adhere to Sir W. Hooker’s great “spec. filicum”;

6

W. Hooker (1846-64).

but I would like to instance exempli casua one case for his reconsideration; and this he will sure to grant with his usual amiability and candor , all the more as he never saw any Schizaeas growing in their native countries! Now how could S. Forsteri and S. dichotoma be united! - Both Sprengel and Willdenow already marked out S. Forsteri so clearly, although the latter arbitrar[e]ly set aside the former’s name. Let Mr Baker refer to my appendage of Campbells New Hebrides, where I referred specially to the distinctness of S. Forsteri.

7

B73.13.01, pp. 27-8.

That is a strictly tropical species, while S. dichotoma comes far down to extra-tropical latitudes with S. fistulosa. Indeed S. Forsteri forms a transit to the section Actinostachys , and should therefore be placed at the end of the Section Lophidium. If once the differences between S. Forsteri and S. dichotoma are well appreciated by any one, he then can sort out the specimens at a glance.

8

M changed his mind on this, explicitly equating them in B89.05.03, p. 7.

I am further still of opinion as reexpressed in my Census,

9

In B83.03.04, p. 136, no entry for S. bifida is given; in the second edition, B89.12.03, p. 229, M lists both S. bifida and S. dichotoma, but omits S. Forsteri.

that there is no specific difference whatever between S. dichotoma and S. bifida, at least so far as Australian material shows. Close to me at Pt. Phillip in the sandy heath-ground the two can be traced into each other; and there must be transitory specimens between those I sent by me

10

by me interlined.

to Kew. But we have no approach to S. Forsteri on the heaths close to Melbourne; indeed the latter is in Austr. only known from Queensland, and is there very rare . I have not Sprengel’s Anleitungen;

11

Sprengel (1802-4).

but Willdenow perhaps from Sprengel) has given a synonymy,

12

Willdenow as editor of Linné (1797–1830) considers Schizaea in vol. 5, pp. 85–8, and treats S. forsteri as a synonym of S. cristata, p. 88, cited by M in his discussion of S. forsteri, in B74.11.01, p. 275.

which probably is quite correct; you can easily verify this at Kew from Schrader’s journal

13

Bernhardi (1801), p. 127, and tab. 2, fig. 3, describes Ripidium, which M included in his synonyms. Although M says he does not have this work in his library, he cites it (as 1802), in B74.11.01, p 275.

(Bernhardi’s figure), which I have not in my library. If Mr Baker still thinks, that S. Forsteri and S. dichotoma are the same, but S. bifida not , then I will enter once more on this investigation, though the matter was largely cleared up in the beginning of the century; and for such renewed investigation I shall have now ampler material, not only through Sonder’s large collection,

14

M received the majority of Sonder’s herbarium in October 1883; see M to R. Tate, 17 October 1883.

but also through the great augmentations of my own since I formerly wrote on the subject.

15

Presumably B74.11.01, p. 275.

I have now also S. Forsteri from New Guinea.

It is a pity that Campbell’s New Hebrides” has been so much overlooked. It was there, that Lysimachia decurrens

16

B73.13.01, p. 17.

was restored. This elaboration by Mr Baker of Papuan ferns has suddenly and quite unexpectedly made me aware of an utterly unintentional shortcoming of mine. It is this. I now only find, that my late friend Cesati worked out Beccari’s New Guinea ferns, and published the results in Febr 1877, while my examination of D’Albertis ferns was published in Dec 1876 [.]

17

Luigi Maria d'Albertis; B76.12.03, pp. 76–82.

Now in looking up the litterature I wrote, that I have from Cesati himself a copy of the essay, but as the title says “ Polinesia ”

18

Cesati (1877).

I did not look for New Guinea ferns, and it must have come when in 1877 I was at Shark-Bay overland from the S. of W.A. and soon after my return my long illness commenced, and then I moved into new quarters, and then came the endless work for the great Exhibition here of 1880, so that Cesati’s researches were lost sight off - I will explain this in the next part of “Papuan plants”

19

‘in 1877 . . . "Papuan plants"' is written in the left margin of f. 194 back, and in the right and left margins of f. 93 front. The next part of Papuan plants was not published until 1890 (B90.05.01). No mention of Cesati’s publication was included.

I shall be much interested in your and Mr Baker’s answer to this letter.

20

I shall . . . letter. is written in the left margin of f. 93 back. The remainder of the letter is transcribed from f. 195, a smaller sheet of paper. It appears to be part of, or an enclosure with, the letter, with which it is bound in the Kew archive. The references to Lygodium and Psilotum, treated in Beccari (1877-90), vol. 3, pp. 52 and 55 respectively, support this interpretation.

I gave full diagnoses of the 3 Lygodiums of Australia already in 1870 (fragm VII, 83-84),

21

B70.01.01.

though they are not quoted by Bentham by a very pardonable oversight; I then already clearly identified them with L. Japonicum, L scandens & L. reticulatum; - therefore L. Japonicum was well known to me, and if it was wrongly named in D’Albertis collection then the labels must have been mixed, or two occurred on one sheet. See Papuan plants p. 75.

22

B76.12.03, p. 75.

The examination was conscientiously done.

Linné did not establish the genus Lygodium, nor did Zollinger name Psilotum complanatum.

Have you in Kew Museum a flower leaf and fruit of the Madagascar Adansonia to spare?

23

The final sentence is on a slip of paper evidently cut off from M’s letter and attached to a printed Royal Gardens, Kew memorandum sheet, found at MEL with a specimen of Adansonia madagascariensis (MEL 2418370). The slip is annotated in W. Thiselton-Dyer’s hand, ‘Sir F. von Mueller in litt 26/7/96’, while on the memorandum sheet Thiselton-Dyer has written, ‘Prof. O. | Can this be managed | W. T. T. D. | 4.9.86’. The sheet also carries Daniel Oliver’s response: ‘No: we have neither flower nor fruit merely branch-tip with leaves. Here is one leaflet a small one. The larger vary to say 3 ins. | It is Baillon’s species.’