The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 28/7/66 ¶ ¶ A variety of circumstances, which it is but right I should explain to you, dear Mr Bentham, delayed the shipment of the rest of the Compositae til for the sailing of the Yorkshire, which ...

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RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, ff. 226-32. 66.07.28a

Plant names

Acroclinium
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Compositae
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Connarus
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Eucalyptus Behriana
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Eudesmia
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Gnaphalium
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Helipterum
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Panax mollis
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Podolepis Siemssenii
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Pterochaeta
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Pteropogon
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Rhodanthe
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Senecio
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1866-07-28 [66.07.28a]. 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/1860-9/1866/66-07-28a-final.odt>, accessed May 7, 2026

28/7/66

A variety of circumstances, which it is but right I should explain to you, dear Mr Bentham, delayed the shipment of the rest of the til for the sailing of the Yorkshire, which clipper ship left our port on the 21. — I was desirous to separate the from Drummonds ill preserved & entirely unsorted collection, because I have reason to think, that no other museum now but mine has some of the plants collected during his last excursions.

M received from James Drummond Jr the 'whole normal collection of plants secured by his father during a long series of years in West Australia' (B67.07.02, p. 212). See also Short (1990).

Then again I was month after month eager to revise the gnaphaloid group myself, because these lovely immarcescent plants have been since my early childhood objects of my fond contemplation. When but a very week little child, not being able to walk before my fifth year, I remember in my dear parents room suspended wreaths of & H. bracteatum in their imperishable beauty, called by them "strofblumen"

strohblumen?

— and these little ornaments drew a mind of poetical tendency to watch all through my boyhood for other flowers as well in the garden & field & made me capable to go independently to work without a teacher to commence the botanical survey of the S.W. part of Schleswig in my 15 year. I thought to plunge then of late into a general examination of all gnaphaloids, having Ecklon & Zeyhers & [Bergs] & many other plants, and the curious forms from NZ also almost completely. I commenced to work on all. I found that poor Harveys limitation of the South African genera admits of reconsideration & I did something towards a new systematic disposition of all the species of the globe. Reluctantly I was obliged to abandon the task for want of leisure and, I fairly admit, at times for want of spirit. Annoyances of grave kind in my very dependent position in this department, disappointment in observing the frailness of human nature where least expected,

Possibly a reference to M’s problems with Carl Wilhelmi. See M to J. McCulloch, 10 March 1866 (in this edition as 66-03-10a).

dispirited me much. My mental working power and my bodily power had all been overtaxed for several years in this large department, which though so young & though almost solely my own creation, ranks now clearly as the second to Kew under the British Crown. The work indeed was in 1866 heavier than in any other year, partly because 20000 young trees planted out over 400 acres of ground had to be kept alife at a season of unprecedented drought, a season which laid for the first time to white mens knowledge (and the natives are dead) dry my large garden lake and rendered necessary to sieze on the rare opportunity to throw up by excavations broad cross-dams, causeways & islands & reclaiming the Melaleuca swamp[s], all of which requiring my daily personal attention as responsible Director & all requiring to be performed without an extra-vote! Then again as Commissioner for two exhibitions, both intercolonial & french I had extra work pressed on my attention. & now suddenly the unexpected death of M'Intyre,

See J. Sharkey to M, 11 June 1866.

who died of typhoid fever, calls me as Aide de Camp, to the Ladies Court of the Leichhardt search to unexpected extra-ertions.

extra exertions?

If I have clung with some tenacity to absolving the work on myself, I had also to see, that the main results of my toilsome labors, carried on here in a scientific exil under great disadvantage and until lately under absense of facilities of any kind, were not lost to me! The financial, domestic & social & even hygienic sacrifices during these last 19 years in Australia have been so great, that you must pardon me if I have been selfish and weak enough to wish to safe out of the wreck of my discoveries as much as I can. My only reward can now (after I passed the zenith of my life) only consist in stamping my name on every square mile of this continent, where the vegetation should speak of me, as that of the whole globe bears testimony everywhere of the genius of George Bentham. — You can afford to be generous.

I am indulging in the hope, that my consignment now sent, will arrive in the beginning of October & thus leave you three months to finish the Composites so that your 3 vol may appear, as it ought, in 1866 .

Bentham (1863-78), vol. 3 appeared in January 1867.

Probably I shall give publicity of some of my notes on gnaphaloides in the 38 fragment, with which the 5 vol will probably be closed.

M described species in this group of in B66.12.04.

But I shall likely retain many until I have learn your confirmatory views or otherwise on the limits of the genera I adopted, and I feel persuaded before you have dipped into an universal scrutiny of all the species of the huge order of for your work on the genera you could not safely circumscribe those for the Australian flora. Indeed until your last 2 letters arrived

G. Bentham to M, 19 April 1866 (in this edition as 66-04-19b), and G. Bentham to M, 18 May 1866 (in this edition as 66-05-18a).

I did not for a moment believe the Australian work would forerun the genera,

Bentham & Hooker (1862-83).

not merely because it is infinitely more important that your sterling knowledge of all the universal Vegetation should be crowned with the results you lay down in the new generic code, than be half be thrown away on the flora of Australia, but also I cannot see how a partial examination of representatives of plants from one part of the globe only can lead to the adoption of safe generic outlines.

I find all the gnaphaloid genera excessively arbitrary; more so than might be expected though we must all be conscious that no natural genera exist. To avoid extremes, I discarded the views of J. Hooker (flor. of N. Zeal

J. Hooker (1853-5).

) & of Schultz Bipontinus,

C. Schultz (1845).

according to which Helichrysum &c have to be reunited with . The latter genus with its herbaceous plants can be recognized by its pluriseriate anandrous flowers; an occasional transitory exception infringes not sufficiently the rule Helichrysum I widen thus far (as regards Australian plants irrespective of those of South Africa, to which I may once specially refer) as to admit of the amalgamation of Ozothamnus!, !, !, , —. To these subgenera must be added in which the multiseriate pappus cannot be of more value than in . It makes a very good section but no more and thus my

B62.05.01, p. 32.

includes The character derived from the anthers is not good. breaks entirely down the marks of , leaving only one with solid pappus [t]ips like in a S. African genus. Whether can be separated I am still doubtful. We have rostrate Heliptera! ( S. & M.)

Sonder (1852a), p. 504.

in Seemans journal 1866

B66.04.01, p. 121.

mediates the transit from Ixiolaena to Helichrysum. Still the genera may be retained. Helichrysum, though purely artificial, is so instanter recognized by the same note which separated from , as to give us a very fair assemblage of plants for generic detachment, but it must absorbe , the appendages of the anthers in many helichrysoids separating only in age, — also , (as indicated by A Gray),

Probably A. Gray (1852).

, .

Turcz is also a true Helichrysum.

is one of those artificial points on which several genera meet. It swallows up several species, referable to Helichrysum or were it not for the many barren central flowers. I shall for the present maintain the genus, but as I stated 1852 in the Linnaea,

B53.04.01, pp.415-16.

it may fall by the advance of yet undiscovered new form of alliance. It may be made to include and I will further reflect on this point.

If is to be kept up its generic name must give way to Schlectendals

chlorocephala?

Turcz is . Schoenia must go either entirely into or partly into .

As regards specific characters we must take warning from the teachings of and of and incanum.

From your letter arrived by this mail

G. Bentham to M, 18 May 1866 (in this edition as 66-05-18a).

I gather that you maintain . Recent dissections have led me to other conclusions, and if not further observations lead me to other views I shall bring all s to . I find not all the receptaculi of solid, though the cavity is not so expansive as in and will closely investigate the subject while these plants are coming now into bloom. Meanwhile in my Supplemental I have some months ago marked every .

Probably I shall undertake two maps for a physiographic atlas of Australia

See M to J. Hooker, 28 July 1866.

and if this is carried out I can easily have 1000 extracopies struck up and present them for appending to your work also the geographical map. I have just brought up a report on the subject.

The Governor of Tasmania, Colonel Thomas Gore Browne, had suggested the preparation of such a map. A sub-committee comprising J. Bleasdale, F. McCoy and M turned the suggestion into a definite proposal. See M et al. to the Commission for the Intercolonial Exhibition, August 1866 (in this edition as 66-08-00a), and M to R. Barry, 22 August 1866.

Will not the Congress do for Europe what you with my aid are doing for the Australian Continent.

A Botanical Congress was held in conjunction with the International Horticultural Exhibition in London in May 1866 (see Gardeners' chronicle, 26 May 1866). A Flora for the whole continent was not produced as a result.

It is a sound view, that induced you to abandon the new genera of e, which remind me a good deal of Bergs grouping of .

O. Berg (1857-9).

Panax with Plinius and indeed all ancient writers was masculine generis.

In hurriedly packing up the e I did not distinguish . It is a remarkable plant, shrubby 6-8' high, with purple prickly stem.

Ever your Ferd Mueller

I am delighted with your arrangement of the Eucalypti according to the anthers, though RBr. would have felt rather surprised that did not even rank as a section. I am now raising from seeds as many species as I can to watch the characters of the young seedlings, which indeed never varies & may well be drawn into diagnoses. So it is with many plants & some day I will offer a special memoir on the subject my position as Director of this large garden department affording me much facility for the purpose.

No publication by M specifically on the utility of seedling characters for taxonomy has been found, but see below and n. 4 to M to G. Bentham, August 1866 (in this edition as 66-08-00g).

Meanwhile I get drawings made of all the seedlings as they spring up.

M included a plate showing seedlings of 27 species in Eucalyptographia. Decade 9 (B84.04.04), 'to exhibit mainly the cotyledonar leaves'.

From adventitious branchlets no notes can be derived. I shall work now on Eucalyptus with renewed interest.

I have recently received a fine collection of Hong Kong plants from which I can furnish supplementary notes to your work.

I have reduced to Podolepis as P. Siemssenii.

See B66.12.04, p. 200.

is a desert species. It belongs to the & is probable distinct from the true . Smith could not have had access to it.

was described in 1797 from specimens collected at Port Jackson (J. E. Smith (1797), p. 287). At that time the desert regions of Australia had not been explored. Bentham treated M's E. fasciculosa (B55.13.05, p. 34) as a variety of E. paniculata (Bentham (1863-78), vol. 3, p. 212).

I am looking forward with great interest to the other pages of proof. is one of the most common plants of Victoria from the seacoast to the mountains. I am preparing now tar, acetic acid & spirits from it. Should Dampiers figures not be quoted & his plants at Oxford not be examined? Of occurs a diagnosis in Tr. Vict. Inst. I, 34.

B55.13.05, p. 34.

The Eucalypti must have given you an immensity of work & thought. Of a diagnosis is given, Fragm II, 68.

B60.05.01, p. 68.

is the famous "Karri" which in Karri dale attains a hight of 400' Hence it is next to probably the most colossal tree of the globe and infinitely more rapid a growth.

You will have to insert at the end of the volume the (vid. Fragm V, 105.)

conchocarpus, B66.02.01, p. 105. Bentham did not include Connaceae in Bentham (1863-78). Bentham's sequence of Orders, based on that used in Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), would have placed Connaceae before Leguminosae, i.e. at the end of vol. 1 or the beginning of vol. 2 of Flora australiensis. It was not Bentham's practice to add addenda to accommodate newly discovered taxa out of their sequence.