Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, f. 15. 66.06.00b

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1866-06 [66.06.00b]. 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/1860-9/1866/66-06-00b-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

1
MS annotation: 'Vol iii' (i.e. Bentham (1863-78), vol. 3).
Note for Mr Bentham
I send a new genus of
Rubiaceae

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from Cape York. It is nearer
Morinda

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than
Mussaenda

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, though it has quite the habit & petaloid large floral leaves of the latter. I have called it
Dichromophyllum

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.
2
Dichromophyllum

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is not listed in IPNI or in M's Census, B89.12.03. It is not given as an herbarium name in any of the Rubiacea descriptions in Bentham (1863-78), vol. 3; but M’s brief description in this note and the comment in G. Bentham to M, 25 September 1866 that Bentham did not think a plant he had received warranted a generic distinction suggests that it is
Morinda

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reticulata (p. 424).
The fragment is dated on the assumption that it would have been sent after M sent his collection of
Rubiaceae

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on 11 January 1865 (Notebook recording despatch of plants for Flora Australiensis, RB, MSS, M44, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne), and would have arrived at Kew before September 1866, probably sent in a letter to J. Hooker. Since Bentham commented upon it on 25 September, it probably arrived while Bentham was in the country (G. Bentham to M, 22 July 1866, in which he replied to M to G. Bentham, 26 May 1866). The earliest possible of five letters to Hooker that it could have accompanied is M to J. Hooker, 26 June 1866.