Document information

Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1871-81, f. 149. 74.08.07

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1874-08-07. 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/1870-9/1874/74-08-07-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

Melbourne
7/8/74.
At last, dear Mr Bentham, everything for the second large case of plants for the new volume got ready & is packed for transmission. I have worked up the whole material more or less extensively. The 44 described
Xerotes

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I have reduced to 18, adding only one;
1
B74.08.01, pp. 205-13. The new species was X. fimbriata (p. 211).
10 spec are exclusively western, 6 eastern, 3 reach across from East to West .
The Palms not yet back from Wendland, nor have I heard of him.
The
Najadeae

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I have also done;
2
B74.08.01, pp. 215-19.
but RBrs
Caulinia spinulosa

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is a new genus of
Hydrocharideae

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(
Aschersonia

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),
3
Bentham (1863-78), vol. 7, p. 183, refers to
Aschersonia

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as a new genus erected by M in B74.08.01, p. 219, but refers it to Halophila, to which M considered it to be close. Although in his comment M considered that Caulina spinulosa should be treated as a new genus, he did not give a name to it. In B89.12.03, p. 193, M attributes the combination to Ascherson (1875), p. 368. See also M to P. Ascherson, 6 October 1874 (in this edition as 74-10-06c).
whereas also
Enhalus

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is to be added to the Australian genera of that order.
The Grasses and ferns are all ready; but I will send in due course the
Cyperoideae

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before, on which I am now engaged.
It would be well, if you could extend the cosmopolitan researches on
Panicum

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&c &c with the large material at Kew. it would add to the value of the new volume and clear away a lot of spurious species I made a fair commencement with due caution, so far as my material guided me.
With best wishes for your health
& happiness
Ferd von Mueller.
I find great difficulty in getting my observations here printed, often for a long time no pages of the fragmenta can be printed, and I have no journal in Australia for publications available.
4
Although M remained a member of the Royal Society of Victoria and was regularly mentioned in the annual Presidential addresses, the pubication of its Transactions was suspended after the withdrawal of the Government grant in 1868 and was not resumed until 1874 (Preface, Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 1874, vol. 10, p. ii). It is also possible that M would not have published there in any case, as he had ceased practical engagement with the Society following the debacle of the Burke and Wills Expedition, where his advice and experience had been ignored (Home 2015). M was however, continuing to pubish in the Papers and proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, for example B74.13.05, which was the third part of a series begun with B69.13.03. He later published a Samoan species in that journal, B76.13.02.
The
Junceae

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, Restiae &c will go by the Agamemnon in the course of this month. Inventory is already sent to Kew.
5
Inventory not found.