The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: ¶ The plant from the North Shore is ¶ Olax stricta ¶ (R. Brown), a plant not yet under cultivation here, and which would be very interesting in my systematic garden. Olacineae are but a small order...

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58.08.00d

Plant names

Olax Benthamicum
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Olax aphylla
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Olax obcordata
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Olax phyllanthi
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Olax religiosa
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Olax stricta
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Opilia amentacea
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Ximenia exornata
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to William Woolls, 1858-08 [58.08.00d]. 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//letters/1850-9/1858/58-08-00d-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

Letter not found. For the text given here, see the postscript of a letter to the editor by William Woolls, Sydney morning herald, 13 August 1858, p. 3 (B58.08.02). Woolls introduces the text as follows: ‘I have received the following valuable remarks from Dr. F. Mueller’.

The plant from the North Shore is (R. Brown), a plant not yet under cultivation here, and which would be very interesting in my systematic garden. Olacineae are but a small order in Australia. I found in Arnheim’s Land. grows on the western side of Spencer’s Gulf, and thence all the way to New South Wales: no member of this order exists. O. stricta extends to Moreton Bay, where it sometimes assumes a broad-leaved and downy form; O. aphylla being also sometimes downy. Besides , two other species (O. Benthamicum and O. religiosa) grow in Western Australia. On the tropical east coast grows my , and in New South Wales and North Australia, near the Gulf of Carpentaria, we found (Roxburgh), a slender shrub, of which sheep are very fond when the grass or herbage becomes parched. Nor was the plant unacceptable to ourselves, the yellow fruit being of a sweetish, though somewhat acid, flavour.