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Gray Herbarium Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 76.08.23

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Asa Gray, 1876-08-23. 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/1870-9/1876/76-08-23-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

Melbourne 23/8/76
Let me thank you for your friendly note, dear Dr Gray, and for the splendid volume on Californian plants
1
Brewer, Watson & A. Gray (1876).
, for which anyhow I would have sent, but which I value all the more from your hands. I shall closely compare your diagnoses of the orders , as I have recently written the characters of them for my "school-flora",
2
The Government stopped the printing of this work; when the Chief Secretary James McCulloch saw proof sheets he annotated them on 22 November 1876, saying he judged that the work would be of little or no value for schools (K76/13910, unit 883, VPRS 3991/P, VA 860 Chief Secretary's Office, Public Record Office, Victoria). See Lucas, Maroske & Brown-May (2006).
of which the first part is in print. I shall be able to improve now from your large experience on the characteristics, which I had adopted. —
I have used the term "fruitlets" for carpels, stalklets for pedicels &c to make the language as plain as possible for schools and have for want of space omitted many characteristics on ovules &c not absolutely requisite for recognition of an order or genus. There is very great difficulty here to get anything published, printing being far more costly here than in Europe and America. To Trimens journal I have sent last month some notes on the affinity of
Plantagineae

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, which bear some relation to
Loganiaceae

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.
3
B76.11.01.
The seeds of
Logania

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&
Plantago

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are very similar and there are other points of concurrence.
I feel highly gratified about the friendly notice, concerning my last poor publications, in the records of the American Academy.
4
Gray published a brief notice in the American journal of science, series 3, vol. 12 (1876), p. 156, of vol. 9 of M's Fragmenta and early parts of his Descriptive notes on Papuan plants. The former bore testimony, he wrote 'to the untiring industry, zeal, and ability with which Dr. Von Mueller keeps up his investigations into the botany of the adopted country for which he has done so much in various ways'; while the latter 'shows how, from his vantage point, he widens the already ample field, making the most of opportunity, ever active himself, and directing the activity and advantages of others'.
Any words from you have such authority.
In the School-flora I have combined
Brasenia

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with
Cabomba

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, which may interest you.
5
M cited the aborted Victorian school flora, p. 23 in his transfer of
Brasenia

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peltata to
Cabomba

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in B76.10.01, p. 77.
I do not see, how the two genera are to be kept separate. Of course I do not think anymore about Benthams remark
6
See M to A. Gray, 7 August 1875, and M to A. Gray, 16 April 1876. In his 1874 address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Bentham had criticized M and Gray for publishing unconnected species descriptions 'over so great a variety of publications as to render them almost useless for the general botanist' (see Bentham (1875), p. 53).
and should never think to give him pain.
Ever your
Ferd. von Mueller.