Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M4, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 63.11.00b

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

George Bentham to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1863-11 [63.11.00b]. 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/1860-9/1863/63-11-00b-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

25, WILTON PLACE, S.W.
1
Dated to after 19 November 1863, on the basis of the contents: Allan Black took up duty at Bangalore on 1 January 1864 (A. Black to W. Hooker, 23 February 1864, RBG Kew, Directors' Correspondence, vol. 57, f. 30); it would have been some days after True Briton arrived at Deal on 11 November 1863 (Morning post, 12 November 1863, p. 7) before the cargo was unloaded in the docks on the Thames; and references to the content of letters from M to G. Bentham, see below.
My dear Sir
Although I wrote a few days ago by Southampton
2
G. Bentham to M, 19 November 1863 (in this edition as 63-11-19a).
I must now add a few lines by the Overland to acknowledge the receipt of yours of the 10th and 24th Sept.
3
M to G. Bentham, 10 September 1863 (in this edition as 63-09-10b) and 24 September 1863.
which have since come to hand. The bills for £5.5.0 which you kindly enclosed are now of no use — in the first place because the amount is already paid out of the £10 you sent in the spring — and secondly because Mr Black to whose order they are drawn left on the 19th for India. He had contracted a pulmonary disease from overwork and was ordered to a warmer climate and has accepted a post at the Bangalore (I believe) garden. Therefore return the bills cancelled for safety.
The box per True Briton has arrived safe as well as its precedessors and I hope shortly to return a box of
Papilionaceae

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.
I am surprised you have not yet received the 30 copies of my first vols for your Government
4
See M to G. Bentham, 24 September 1863.
Reeve told me he had despatched them through Baillière before I left town in July.
5
.The transmission was probably to Ferdinand Baillière in Melbourne through his father Hippolyte Baillière in London.
I scarcely think it worth your while sending supplementary matter for Orders already published — excepting where you can spare specimens of novelties for the Kew herbarium to keep, which will be always most acceptable
I fear that a few garden specimens have occasionally been sent to you from N. S. Wales. The single specimen named by you
Indigofera hebepetala

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(hebepetala is a MS name of a slight variety of atropurpurae. You must remember that the plants of Hooker and Thomson were hastily distributed without that critical examination which they will undergo for the Indian Flora which Hooker & Thomson are preparing after the plan of Fl. Austral.)
6
hebepetala is a MS name … plan of Fl. Austral. interlined with the insertion mark possibly at the wrong point in the text; parentheses an editorial addition for clarity.
is evidently the I. atropurpurea a Himalayan plant long grown in our gardens but most unlikely to be indigenous in N. S. Wales— so also a specimen marked "from the northern parts of N. S. Wales" is the S. African
Tephrosia grandiflora

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certainly not indigenous in N. S. Wales These cases make me suspect that the
Pterospermum acerifolium

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described vol. 1. p. 233 may after all be from the Sydney Botanic Garden — although that is less unlikely to be found really wild in tropical Australia, than a purely Himalayan or a Cape plant.
Of the 10 Australian herbaceous Indigoferas 8 (including I. oxycarpa which is I. parviflora Heyne) are Indian whilst the shrubby ones are all endemic — I fear I cannot reduce them as much as you do — that is to say I think that several forms must be distinguished which most botanists will call species although others may agree with you in calling them varieties
I have done Tephrosia which has given me a great deal of trouble. The only Indian species is T. purpurea and that assumes in Australia many forms which it never does in Asia or Africa.
Galega tricolor

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Hooker (
Callotropis

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Don) is nothing but G. persica with a mistake as to its origin.
When you unite
Vigna

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with Dolichos
7
See M to G. Bentham, 10 September 1863 (in this edition as 63-09-10a).
you surely cannot mean Dolichos as now limited to several Cape species and two S. American ones besides the cultivated D. Lablab.
Vigna

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is on the contrary very closely allied to
Phaseolus

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— one or two species quite intermediate[.] I worked those genera up with much care for Martius' Flora
8
Bentham (1859-76), part 1, cols. 179-195.
W.
9
Wight.
& Arnott's
Glycine

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contains no
Glycine

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of the elder Linnaeus and is
Teramnus

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but
Glycine

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proper with one true Linnean species includes
Johnia

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,
Soja

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and
Leptocyamus

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.
I see you speak of a
Dolichos Benthami

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10
M to G. Bentham, 10 September 1863. M did not publish Dolichos benthami.
pray let me beg of you again on no account to name any species after me It is known to be against my principles to name species after any one but the discoverer except under extraordinary circumstances and for Australian plants it would have the appearance of my naming plants after myself.
I have not heard anything more of the £100 for the 2d vol. Mr Sargeant promised to let me know as soon as he received the authority to pay it: and as the mail has now been in some days I presume that no instructions have been sent from Melbourne. It is however of no consequence as I am not strictly entitled to it till the vol. is in the printer's hands which will not be till Feby or March
Ever yours sincerely
George Bentham