The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 25, WILTON PLACE, S.W. ¶ June 26 /65 ¶ My dear Sir ¶ ¶ I have just had forwarded from Kew to the Agent to ship for you two boxes containing all your Myrtaceae except Eucalyptus and one small parcel o...

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Physical location:

RB MSS M4, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 65.06.26

Plant names

Angophora intermedia
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Barringtonia
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Eucalyptus
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Eugenia Smithii
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Eugenia Ventenatii
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Eugenia carissoides
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Eugenia elliptica
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Jambosa
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Jossinia
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Leguminosae
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Metrosideros floribunda
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Myrtaceae
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Myrteae
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Myrtus Tozeri
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Myrtus trineura
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Nelitris
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Rhodamnia
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Rhodomyrtus
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Syzygium brachynemum
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Umbelliferae
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Preferred Citation:

George Bentham to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1865-06-26. 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/1860-9/1865/65-06-26-final.odt>, accessed May 7, 2026

25, WILTON PLACE, S.W.

June 26 /65

My dear Sir

I have just had forwarded from Kew to the Agent to ship for you two boxes containing all your except and one small parcel of etc. I trust you will receive them safe they are certainly well soldered up and quite dry without insects.

I have been working hard but the have proved much more troublesome than I expected from the enormous number I have had to dissect both for the Australian species (which I have now done except ) and for the tropical genera

For Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 1, pp. 690-725.

— I now on leaving town send to press the for Genera Plantarum and I expect to publish the new part with all before early in autumn Dr Hooker having worked up all the orders except & which I have done

I had no letter from you last mail and this months is not yet come in — Your circular however about the search for Leichhardt came by last mail. Your exertions in that cause are most laudable and well deserving of every support in Australia. Here however I fear we cannot do much and as far as Mrs Bentham and myself are concerned our means are very limited and we have so many pressing calls upon them in this society that we really have nothing to spare for objects so distant

I shall now be away till the middle of September excepting for about a fortnight at the end of next month. I have been both hard worked and worried during the nine months I have stuck to London and want a change for I am no longer young — I shall however take with me a good deal of the Fl. Austral MS I have to write out and shall have press correcting for Genera — of which we have now the sheets of the new part printed off.

Among the returned there are still a few names which must not be taken as definitively settled as there are a few old synonyms still to verify — I ascertained one after I packed up your parcels. Smiths is DC — Ventenat's is the one you have described and correctly distinguished from E. Smithii Poir (E. elliptica Sm. S. brachynemum F Muell)

Eugenia and Syzygium.

— As it also goes with Eugenia it cannot retain the name of floribunda

Described by M as Syzygium floribundum in B64.02.01, p. 58.

which (with 700 other names) is preengaged I suppose therefore I must call it E. Ventenatii

I have been obliged to suppress nine tenths of O. Berg's new genera — my great difficulty has been about Eugenia

O. Berg (1857-9), cols 214-326, 567-90, or O. Berg (1854-61) where Eugenia is treated in each of the three articles included in this work?

there are two very distinct groups the American Eugenias including and two or three Asiatic ones as well as your E. carissoides — and the great mass of Asiatic australian s and Syzygiums — but there is nothing but inflorescence to characterise them — centripetal in the one centrifugal in the other as pointed out by Grisebach — and that is sometimes ambiguous so on the whole I included all with A. Gray and Wight in Eugenia

Wight (1840-53), vol. 2, pp. 12-18, proposed using several sub-genera; A. Gray (1854), pp. 509-10, concurred.

Eugenia cannot be distinguished from Myrtus without the fruit and where the fruit has been known numberless species have been wrong referred. Altogether the whole of the baceate run closely into each other.

I have been induced to keep up from the fact of the false dissepiments which separate each seed even in the young ovule state. Besides the common Archipelago one I include in it three Australian ones your M. trineura, M. Tozeri and a very remarkable one sent by Hill with the foliage nearly of M. Tozeri but with a long cylindrical almost monileform fruit. I also keep up and

I acknowledged in a previous letter your box of etc. I have now also access to a copy of your volume of Plates of Victoria plants

B65.02.06.

Yours very sincerely

George Bentham

F. Mueller