The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: [May 1874] ¶ ¶ You ask me, dear Dr Hooker, by last mail, whether I still hold Helmholtzia as a distinct genus. ¶ To this I must give an affirmative answer, as the matter presents itself to me in thi...

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RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1871-81, f. 146. 74.05.00

Plant names

Cyathopsis
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Cycas
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Epacrideae
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Haeteria
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Helmholtzia
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Liliaceae
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Philydreae
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Philydrum
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Poiretia
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Sprengelia
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Stypandra
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Styphelia
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Joseph Hooker, 1874-05. 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/1870-9/1874/74-05-00-final.odt>, accessed June 5, 2026

[May 1874]

editorial addition. MS annotation, apparently by Hooker: May 1874. This date is consistent with mention of the Educational Collections which, although apparently not distributed until September, were ready in June (M to T. Ware, 20 June 1874).

You ask me, dear Dr Hooker, by last mail, whether I still hold as a distinct genus.

Letter not found.

To this I must give an affirmative answer, as the matter presents itself to me in this way. If Endlicher had not separated ,

Hetaeria? Endlicher (1836–40), p. 133.

and if all subsequent writers on had not adopted this genus , then we could not well separate , though in habit it is more distinct from the two others, then these two are. if was not to stand, then it must go into , not into . In the allied orders of the shape of the anthers is of great moment; instance only . Of course it is quite possible that lower India

The East Indies (i.e. Indonesia) and Malay Peninsula?

and New Guinea may yield us additional , and then new changes in the genera may become possible; but as matters stand at present nothing is gained by uniting the three.

I thank you much for the sending of the second (volume or) part of the important "Flora Indica"

J. Hooker (1875-97), vol. 1, part 2, was published in January 1874 (TL2).

What a treasure that work will be to Indian workers. The plants of Dr Tate are those of Hann's Expedition.

Thomas Tate collected during William Hanns 1872 expedition the Cape York Peninsula, Qld. See also M to J. Hooker, 8 September 1873 (in this edition as 73-09-08b).

I think you will find my limitation of the genera of the safest. I have in the VIII vol (pag. 52)

B73.06.03.

added to my former schema,

B67.09.01.

but omitted as a section of , besides ought to take precedence of

but omitted … Sprenglia is marked in the margin with two vertical lines. Hooker treated the in Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 2, part 2, pp. 608-18, published in May 1876. His scheme followed that already published in December 1868 by Bentham (1863 -1878), vol. 4, pp 142-65, who had rejected Ms arguments against the groups and genera proposed in R. Brown (1810), pp. 535-56, as unnecessary since M 'does not propose to remodel Brown's groups but only to reduce their value in the systematic scale, of which the principal result is an altered nomenclature' (p. 146). See Lucas (2003), pp 269–72.

in all fairness, and to this view I have given effect in the first fascicle of the "Educational Collections" just to be issued.

See M to T. Webb Ware, 20 June 1874. For Ms Educational Collections, see Lucas, Maroske and Brown-May (2006), pp 34-6 and Maroske (2007).

Prof Agardh writes me that his has made new roots.

Letter not found.

Let your gardener examine yours.

MS annotation by Hooker: Thank for Normanbyana. See also J. Hooker to M, 6 May 1873.

With best wishes

Ferd. von Mueller