At pp. 238 and 239 (February 20) the question is raised — What is
? and gratuitously it is added, "It is a peculiarity of Baron von Mueller that he
rarely sends out specimens or seeds of plants without provisional names," &c. I had
to read over this sentence several times before I could make myself believe that "
without" had been substituted in error for "with." Will your correspondent cite the
numerous "provisional names?"
No phytographic worker has ever been more careful in adopting correct names than
myself. I can fairly state that I have reduced thousands of useless synonyms of other
writers on Australian plants first, to their real names; instance
, to which I reduced correctly seventeen species of acknowledged high authorities;
and if on rare occasions I, like my compeers, have adopted provisional names, there
was full reason for it, which must be apparent to the meanest understanding. Even
in so difficult a genus as Eucalyptus—in which first of all by myself sound principles
for specific demarcation were established—nearly all the species (about half a hundred)
established by me have stood the test of comparison with original specimens of species
previously known and mostly ill-described before my time. That in such a genus an
occasional duplicity
may occur (as in similar instances with
and Lambertiana) can readily be comprehended; so it is yet an unsettled point whether
the E. fissilis should be separated as a species or as a variety from E. obliqua;
the wood and bark of both are very distinct to the woodsplitters, builders, and commercial
dealers. Thus it was for a very long time uncertain when this, my E. diversicolor—one
of the fifty called Blue Gum tree of West Australia—was identical with the famous
Karri tree;
and this identity I was only able to establish when I visited West Australia personally
in 1857,
after the name E. colossea was adopted for the Karri-wood in our locality, and also
in several foreign industrial exhibitions. When this identity was made out, I informed
M. Ramel and many other correspondents of the fact.
It seems almost beneath one's dignity to spend time in refuting attacks, such as
the one in your number of Feb. 20; but the baseless attacks of traducers have brought
an honourable departmental position to the dust (while under the Civil Service regulations
of this colony I could not defend myself), and no one in Europe seems to care to aid
in rebuilding it, so far as I can perceive. Whenever in my writings E. colossea was
mentioned it was coupled with the vernacular name "Karri," hence there could be no
great difficulty in finding out what it was, and even that difficulty could have been
easily removed by a letter to myself. There are still several Eucalypti about whose
exact specific position I am uncertain, and to avoid confusion temporary names have
to be adopted for them. Even after many centuries of the study of plants in your own
country the controversy about the British Oaks in not yet brought to a close—i.e.,
whether you have one species with two varieties, or two species. Cannot then some
allowance be made for 150 Eucalypti? Surely, therefore, a little more charity might
have been shown in this instance to a distant foreign worker, who would fain have
hoped that he had struggled here against illiberality and envy for a quarter of a
century not altogether in vain.
Ferd. von Mueller,
Melbourne
.
