The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 5/12/68. ¶ ¶ I have to answer, dear Mr Bentham, to your kind letter of the 2 Oct — I am glad to perceive you are well and again busy. I am looking forward with pleasure to the continuance of your val...

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RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, ff. 356-7. 68.12.05

Plant names

Banksia
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Casuarina acuaria
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Compositae
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Dryandra
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Dryandreae
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Grevillea heliosperma
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Hakea Leucoptera
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Leguminosae
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Lissostylis
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Monochlamydeae
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Myrtaceae
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Ptychocarpa
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1868-12-05. 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/1860-9/1868/68-12-05-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

5/12/68.

I have to answer, dear Mr Bentham, to your kind letter of the 2 Oct — I am glad to perceive you are well and again busy. I am looking forward with pleasure to the continuance of your valuable transmissions. The new transits, which I made, will not come in the order, expressed in your last letter. But as they are now on the way already, there can be now no alteration made. It is best, I push off within the next weeks the rest of the . You can then arrange the sequence of these heterogenous orders as you please. — The consignment may appear formidable, but is not so in reality, because the are so bulky and at the same time so very easily examined. Hence you will not require to give very much time to at least the , especially after the amount of labor, I spent on them.

See B68.12.01, pp. 204-224, and B68.12.02, pp. 236-248.

Though Meissner saw it fall to his enveyable share, to describe so many extraordinar & singularly beautiful plants of this family, he left the descriptions (often for want of material[)]

editorial addition.

very defective.

Meisner (1856).

So I had often to describe first of all the flowers or the fruit. The annotations of the localities are also very scanty. One Hakea (H. Leucoptera) he has under four names & four diagnoses, and yet these four stand not at all near to each other!

See B68.12.01, p. 219.

— He also separated Grevilleas on the character of pinnatisected or undivided leaves, which character is not always constant. I have myself as yet seen too little of the West Australian in the field , to be clear about their exact degree of variability, which seems to be considerable.

In the characteristics of the species of & Meissner omitted the carpological characters, which are very important indeed, as regards the septum & the seeds. How the septum can be formed by the testa, I have been unable to see. I think Meissners can be brought down to nearly half the number, after thorough sifting, as he depended on so many fallacious characters. If the conical stigma is of sectional value in Grevillea, it ought to have that value also in Hakea. Grevillea heliosperm[a] is truly bivalved in its fruit, a character rare in Grevillea, but universal in Hakea. RBr & Meissner have in the section Cycloptera of Grevillea several species, of which the fruit is thinly coriaceous like in & . When the are worked up, then the last of the very large orders of Australian phanerogamae will have passed through your examination. It will then be interesting to see, in what proportion , , & stand numerically to each other. Of course & , particularly the latter will receive far more access by new inland discoveries, than & , because the plants of the two latter orders are in all instances woody & mostly showy, while the small & particulalry the minute annual may easily elude observations, especially in a dry season.

Pardon me if I mention, that as some specimens of my normal collection are kept at Kew, it would do my department some good, if in our kind friend Dr Hookers Directoral Report this acquisition of my plants counted as a donation.

Hooker's report for the year 1868 did not specifically identify the acquisitions from M as 'donations', but listed M's contributions among those received 'partly through purchase, but chiefly by gift or exchange' (J. Hooker (1869)).

Always with very best regards

Ferd. von Mueller.

The postscript paragraphs are written in the margins of the folios.

The term follicle for the fruit (a single carpel) of Grevillea ought to be banished. Meissner calls the analogous fruit of Hakea a caps[u]le , which it not is in the strict term.

Follicle being a medical expression, we ought not to have as a term for an organ of a plant.

Alph D.C. objects to the adjective acuaria

Acuaria = A maker or seller of needles. In the footnote to the entry for Casuarina oxyclada A. de Candolle wrote in a footnote to Miquel (1868), p. 344: 'Nomen acuaria mense Julli 1867 a cl. Mueller divulgatum (Fragm. p. 16) prius est, sed linguae latinae alienum.' [The name acuaria given by M in July 1867 (Fragm. p. 16) [B67.07.05] is prior, but is alien to the Latin language.] Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, p. 202, treated Miquel's C. oxyclada as a synonym of M's C. acuaria.

(in Casuarina) but yet that word occurs in classical works, though more particularly applied to vendors. We have so many half latin & half greek words, that really a fair one like acuaria might pass.