The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: Queenscliff ¶ 26/8/67 ¶ ¶ I write once more from the coast to you, dear Mr Bentham, to report progress. In the stillness of rural life, at this season when no bathers are here, I hope, while spendin...

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RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, ff. 278-9. 67.08.26

Plant names

Andersonia
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Astroloma Baxteri
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Brachyloma
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Cakile maritima
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Conostephium
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Cystanthe
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Epacrideae
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Epacris
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Geococcus pusillus
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Needhamia
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Oligarrhena
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Rhamnaceae
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Richea
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Sphenotoma
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Sprengelia
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Stenanthera squamuligera
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1867-08-26. 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/1860-9/1867/67-08-26-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

Queenscliff

Vic.

26/8/67

I write once more from the coast to you, dear Mr Bentham, to report progress. In the stillness of rural life, at this season when no bathers are here, I hope, while spending here a few weeks more, to recruit my strength & regain mental elasticity. I had to go back for 16 days to Melbourne for departmental work

M returned to Melbourne from Queenscliff on 8 August (see M to J. Grant, 8 August 1867), and was still there when he wrote to Bentham on 21 August 1867.

& this enabled me to send off simultaneously an other large consignment of well arranged by the "Great Britain" While here undisturbed, I mean to finish off my researches on this order, now pending for twenty years. By last mail I gave you some indication of the reconstruction of the genera I intend to adopt.

M to G. Bentham, 27 July 1867.

I have to publish similar remarks as I offered on & have sent a rather extensive enumeration of the species to the printer for my fragmenta.

B67.09.01, pp. 29-76. An extensive treatment of was prepared and published (B62.09.01, pp. 62-86) before the specimens were sent to Kew on 16 September 1862 (RB MSS M44, M notebook recording despatch of plants for Bentham for Flora australiensis. Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne).

The drupaceous genera I have nearly completed, altho I sent off by mistake all my specimens of & & some others. I find that I cannot, as I intended, maintain your genus Conostephium, after I saw the shortly bidentate anthers of (Stenanthera squamuligera). I am not quite certain whether can be maintained but have all the species here for examination. I shall in all probability join them to Sprengelia. The placentation is not exactly to be relied on, at least in Sphenotoma. As for the aestivation it is a doubtful character, though Brachyloma, &c are in this way curious. itself has exceptional species in this regard. Unfortunately I have sent off the main bulk of too early, but hope to solve all doubts with the little material left. It is not without trembling that I reflect on the possibility of accident when sending off anything to you without a rigorous preexamination! But what is to be done, when the worker is beset with troubles in the department, prostrated by illness and overtaxed with extrawork? Hitherto we have been lucky in not loosing any consignment, only one box full of specimens having severely suffered on the way back.

See the memorandum of C. Wilhelmi and T. Mueller to M, 24 August 1864 (in this edition as 64-08-24a); M to G. Bentham, 25 August 1864; and M to G. Bentham, 24 September 1864.

But we can hardly expect a hundred large cases of plants to go to & fro without some final loss. All my observations on the will be published by the time, that the September mail leaves, as apparently I gain a little strength by my stay here. I hope your work will by my preliminary labor be greatly facilitated. I see no hope to keep up RBr small genera, but have fairly weighed all evidence & have no desire of altering names unnecessarily

I received within the last days from the lower Darling (New South Wales). So probably this plant is a native of Vict. & S Austr. also. is common here on the Cliff.

Your attached

Ferd Mueller

will have to be united with Richea.