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RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, f. 347. 68.09.21

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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1868-09-21. 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/1860-9/1868/68-09-21-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

Melbourne bot. Garden
2[1]/9/68.
After all, dear Mr Bentham, I received the proofsheets you so kindly sent, by last mail.
1
See M to G. Bentham, 10 September 1868 (in this edition as 68-09-10b).
They were accidentally first sent to Sydney & came after the last mail had departed. Only hurriedly I have looked over their pages and thus the notes thereon now offered, refer more particularly to the localities and the range of the species.
2
Notes not identified.
As usual these writings of yours are a pure fountain of deep information Your views will doubtless generally be adopted, altho' I cannot help to express a regret, that the genera of the
Epacrideae

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become more contracted. It is so difficult to bear in memory, what particular plant may belong to any of the smaller genera, that I should always give preference, as you have done so often yourself, to larger genera, which we can so well remember without reference to books. Indeed your demarcations of the genera
Epacrideae

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are very fainth,
3
faint?
especially if we compare them with those of
Compositae

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,
Myrtaceae

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and of some other orders, which you recasted. But to this objection it would be doubtless replied, that what is of value in one order could not be so in one standing far apart. But then I ask, should not the genera of Ericeae, of which the
Epacrideae

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are certainly only a tribe, be also grouped on so trifling characters as the
Epacrideae

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, in order that something like an equality of validity in the value of genera may be established, lying close to each other. If we now adopt as the primary mark of division the aestivation of the corolla, then
Ponceletia

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cannot possibly fall together with
Sprengelia

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, or the separation of Brachyl[om]a (to which you so well added certain
Lyssanthe

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s
4
Lissanthe? M is not referring here to the
Lyssanthe

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in Proteaceae listed as a synonym by Endlicher (1836-40), p. 340.
) cannot be maintained. You will also find on reconsideration of the value of these genera that
Dracophyllum

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is in its aestivation not identical with
Sphenotoma

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, which latter is remarkably plicate in its aestivation. Possibly this character of aestivation is perhaps not the [best], altho' I thought so. R. Brown applied it only to the drupaceaous genera, but omitted the character entirely in the capsular genera.
5
R. Brown (1810) treated the
Epacrideae

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on pp. 535-56. See also B67.09.01, pp. 74-6, and M to G. Bentham, 26 September 1867.
I see no help to avoid uniting
Trichinium

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to
Ptilotus

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, as already Poiret proposed.
6
Poiret (1810-17), vol. 4, p. 619. Bentham (1863-78), vol, 5, p. 208 retained the two genera. M 's main connected treatment of the Amarantaceae was in B68.12.02, pp 227-34. He had planned to send the Amarantaceae specimens 'in a few weeks' (M to J. Hooker, 4 July 1868) but they are not noted as being shipped until 15 January 1869 (Notebook recording despatch of plants for Flora Australiensis, RB, MSS, M44, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne).
The genera do
7
no?
longer differ habitually, since so many middle forms have been found.
8
The text ends without valediction at the bottom of the back of f. 347.