Document information

Physical location:

MS papers 37, no 589, folder 211, Haast family papers, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. 73.08.29

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Julius Haast, 1873-08-29. 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/73-08-29>, accessed September 11, 2025

Melbourne
29/8/73
Ich möchte Sie bitten, theuerer Freund, mir eine recht vollständige Sammlung von Restiaceen u Cyperaceen aus Ihrer Provinz u durch die Vermittlung von Freunden aus anderen Theilen Neu Seelands zu senden. Ich habe an diesen Familien im Lauf der nächsten Monate für den 7ten Theil der Flora Australiens zusammen hängend zu arbeiten, u daher ist mir Material von dort zum Vergleich, das mir auch noch Neues liefern möchte, gerade jetzt sehr erwünscht. Lassen Sie aber gütig alle Pflanzen reife Früchte haben, sonst kann man dieselben nicht genau diagnostiren.
Sie werden den Namen
Calostrophus elongatus

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für Ihre häufige Alpen-Restiaceae in C. lateriflorus ändern müssen, denn J. Hooker und alle vor ihm, R Brown eingeschlossen, haben die vor nahe 80 Jahren im Süden Tasmaniens gesammelte seltne ächte Pflanze verkannt u den Namen auf die in N. Seeland u in Australien häufige Art übertragen, was ich erst in diesem Monat ausfand, u nun in der laufenden Nummer der Fragmenta angebe.
Stets Ihr Sie Ehrender
Ferd. von Mueller.
Melbourne,
29 August 1873.
I would like to ask you, dear friend, to send me as complete as possible a collection of
Restionaceae

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and
Cyperaceae

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from your Province and through the agency of friends from other parts of New Zealand. I have to work consecutively on these families in the course of the next few months for the 7th volume of the Flora of Australia,
1
Bentham (1863-78), vol. 7, was not published until 1878.
and therefore the material from there for comparison, which might also furnish me with something new, is just now very desirable. But please ensure that all plants have ripe seed, otherwise they cannot be determined correctly.
You will have to change the name of
Calostrophus elongatus

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for your common alpine
Restionaceae

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to C. lateriflorus, because J. Hooker and all those before him, including R. Brown, have mistaken the rare true plant collected in southern Tasmania nearly 80 years ago, and applied the name to the species common in New Zealand and Australia. I have only discovered that this month, and I am just noting it in the current number of the Fragmenta.
2
B73.08.01, p. 86. M elsewhere used the spelling given in Labillardière (1806), vol. 2, p. 78, where the genus Calorophus was erected; see, for example, B54.10.01, p. 16, and B75.13.10, p. 92. However, in B73.08.01 he gave Calorophus as a synonym for Calostrophus. Bentham (1863-78), vol. 7. pp. 238-40, under Hypolena, section Calorophus, concurred with M that two species had been conflated. R. Brown (1810), p. 247, treated Labillardière's Colorophus elongata as a synonym of Restio lateriflorus.
Always respectfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.