Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1858-70, f. 28. 70.09.00

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1870-09. 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/1870-9/1870/70-09-00-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

1
Dated on the basis that the species being commented upon were published in Bentham (1863-78), vol. 5. The pages commented upon were sent in June 1870 (G. Bentham to M, 9 June 1870). M could not have received them until August. These comments are almost certainly those sent with M to G. Bentham, 6 September 1870.
p.
2
p. written by M at the top of f. 28, above the list of page numbers to which he makes reference. MS annotation:'vol. v', and in another hand: '
Scleranthus mniaroides

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'.
259.
Scleranthus mniaroides

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extends to Mount Kos[z]iusco in N.S. Wales.
3
Bentham gave specific localities for Vic but not NSW.
260.
Scleranthus pungens

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occurs in the desert on the Murray within N. S. Wales territory.
4
Bentham did not have any locality record for NSW.
263.
Rumex crispus

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and the other introduced species are wanting a star.
5
Naturalised species were indicated by an asterisk in Flora australiensis. In his comments Bentham implied that
Rumex crispus

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, R. conglomeratus, and R. pulcher were probably naturalized European species; only R acetosella was given an asterisk.
They are all common in many localities now.
264.
Rumex Brownii

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one of the most common of all S. Australian and Victorian plants
6
Bentham gave specific localities for Vic and SA; for NSW he cites Leichhardt for 'Newcastle everywhere where sheep have been'.
265
Rumex Bidens

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common in many places of Victoria & S. Australia, also N.S. Wales on the Murray river
7
Bentham did not give a locality record for NSW but gave specific localities for Vic and SA.
268.
Polygonum strigosum

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grows on the Upper Murray River in N.S. Wales & Victoria, also throughout Gippsland. It was impossible to gather specimens of such a common plant from its many localities.
8
Bentham gave only 'Ovens and Plenty rivers' as Victorian locality records; the Upper Marray was not included as a locality for NSW.
268
Polygonum prostratum

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Common on the Murray River in N.S. W. & Victoria.
9
Bentham gave the Murray River as a locality for Vic but not for NSW.
269
Polygonum minus

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Common in N.S. Wales, Victoria and S. Australia in many parts
10
Bentham gave four locality records for Vic and three for SA.
272.
Muhlenbeckia

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should be written Muehlenbeckia, in honor of Dr H.G. Muehlenbeck of Muehlhousen in Alsatia, where he largely added to the cryptogamic plants known from there.
11
Muehlenbeckia is the spelling under which this genus was later conserved under the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.
276.
Muehlenbeckia Cunninghami

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on most of the desert swamps and often in vast abundance in the interior. Hence the appellati[ve] of Polygonum swamps, given to all these inundated places by the explorers. The species stands closely to M. ephedroides from N. Z.
12
Bentham's locality records are both specific, e.g. 'Dombey Bay, Wilhelmi' in SA, and general, such as, for SA, 'Murray river to St Vincent's Gulf, F. Mueller' and for NSW, 'Murray and Darling rivers to the Barrier Range, Victorian [i.e, Burke and Wills] and other Expeditions'.
279.
Pisonia aculeata

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. My exposition of the three Australian species, P. aculeata, P. inermis, P. excelsa in the Fragmenta (vi, 197-198) is overlooked.
13
B68.06.03 was not cited as part of the secondary literature by Bentham, who also omitted
Pisonia excelsa

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from direct treatment or in the synonomy of the three species, although he commented that 'the synonomy ... remains exceedingly confused, and the specimens now in our herbaria are wholly insufficient to clear it up'.
285
Daphnandra micrantha

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. The fruit is fully described in a note appended to my plants of Victoria p 220.
14
Bentham's description did not include details of the fruit; in the 'additions' to B62.03.03, p. 220, under the heading Atherosperma moschatum, M provided an account of the fruit. Bentham did not include this reference in his citations of the secondary literature.
286.
Mollinedia

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Ruiz is by misprint rendered Ring.
288.
Kibara

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. I cannot believe that we have four really distinct species
15
Bentham had noted that M considered all of the species Bentham recognised as varieties of
Kibara

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macrophylla.
310
Cassytha glabella

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grows in many parts of South Austr & Vict so also
Cassytha pubescens

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.
16
Bentham's locality record for
Cassytha glabella

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gives only one specific locality for SA, 'Kangaroo Island, Seeley’, and a series of specific localities for Vic. For C. pubescens, the South Australian record is general, 'from the Murray to St. Vincent's Gulf, F. Mueller', with a series of specific localities for Victoria.
Among
Proteaceae

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I miss the genera
Molloya

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and
Strangea

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in the general table.
17
i.e. Bentham (1863-78), vol. 5, pp. 316-8. M would not have had, at the stage he made these comments, the sheets containing Bentham's view of
Strangea

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which he regarded 'as far as the characters are derived from the fruit and foliage, the only parts known, ... to be ... inseperable from G[revillea] cynanchicarpa' (p. 453). Bentham also regarded
Molloya

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cynanchicarpa as a synonym of G. cynanchicarpa, and gave his reasons for rejecting the proposal that the plant be treated as generically distinct (p. 454).
The former is to me not more known that it was to Meissner,
18
Meisner (1856), p. 348, 'genus non satis notum'.
but
Strangea

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seems in my opinion very distinct as regards its fruits. Ba[i]llon in his histoire de plants
19
Baillon (1867-95) treats
Proteaceae

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in vol. 2, pp. 385-428.
does not allude to
Strangea

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.
Dryandra

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I regard only as a subgenus of
Banksia

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, there being no more difference in the inflorescence than in
Isopogon

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.
20
M would not, when he wrote these comments, have seen Bentham's basis for separating Dyandra from
Banksia

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(p. 563) or
Isopogon

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from Petrophila (p. 336).
p. 284
Atherosperma moschata

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has been found recently by Mr [C S] Walter at Cape Howe within the territory of N.S. Wales.
21
Bentham did not have any locality record for NSW.
p. 292
Piptocalyx

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may be menispermaceous.
22
Bentham stated that he could not 'trace any closer connection with any other Order than that which it evidently bears to Monimiaceae'.
p. 302.
Endiandra virens

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is described fragm. II, 90.
23
Bentham gave the specific name as 'E. virens, F. Muell,; Meissn in DC Prod. xv, i, 509'. SInce he did not cite the source of M's description, he presumably took it to be an herbarium or manuscript name used by Meissner. (Meissner began to spell his name this way from around 1861 (see TL2) and it is used as the author name in publications.)
I had not Molina's work for reference to
Peumus

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. Meissner ought to have quoted it not so absolutely.
24
Bentham (1863-78), vol. 5, p. 295 wrote 'F. Mueller, Fragm. v. 170, observes that the generic name of Cryptocarya must give way to the older name of
Peumus

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established by Molina in his Natural History of Chile; but if he had turned to that work, he would have at once seen why the so-called genera there proposed are in most cases inadmissible. Molina gives no generic character, and in the present instance, under the name of
Peumus

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he includes three or four species belonging to at least three genera and two natural orders.' Meissner (1864), p. 67, cites Molina for
Peumus

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, which he treats as a synonym of Boldu. See Molina (1782), p. 185.
I anticipate that Brogniarts
25
Brongniart?
new proteaceous genus from N. Caledonia
26
Kermadecia (Brongniart & Gris (1863a), p. 228). M had not at this stage seen Bentham's discussion of this genus, p. 417.
has dissolved itself in
Helicia

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& so others in likewise formerly known genera.
How unfortunate the disruption of the
Curvembryoneae

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is, appears very striking by the isolation of the
Paronychieae

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.
27
As Paronychiaceae, in Bentham (1863-78), vol. 5, pp 258-60.
We can have no truely natural system, so long as the chaotic mass of
Monochlamydeae

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remains together. With Alex Braun & others I have always advocated the distribution of the
Monochlamydeae

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, except
Coniferae

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& some allied orders, among the other Dicotyledonar plants
28
M viewed the
Monochlamydeae

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, a grouping of families in which the perianth is apparently single or wanting, as an unnatural group. See B62.03.03, p. 214, which Bentham cites (p. 259), for a brief comment. See also Maroske (2006).