The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 22/8/77. ¶ ¶ I was pleased, dear Mr Bentham, to get the commencing sheets of vol VII ¶ and admire the vigorous continuation of the work as a sound foundation for all future observations, if indeed p...

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Physical location:

RBG Kew, Kew Correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1871-81, f. 201. 77.08.22

Plant names

Carpha
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Chaetospora
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Cyperaceae
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Cyperus
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Gramineae
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Kyllingia
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Monocotyledoneae
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to George Bentham, 1877-08-22. 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/1870-9/1877/77-08-22-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

22/8/77.

I was pleased, dear Mr Bentham, to get the commencing sheets of vol VII

Of Bentham (1863-78).

and admire the vigorous continuation of the work as a sound foundation for all future observations, if indeed phytographically much should remain to be added.

Reading your notes on the classification of , you must allow me to say, that I merely followed Hasskarl in uniting with ;

Hasskarl (1848), pp. 87-9. Bentham (1863-78), vol. 7, p. 251 wrote ‘F. Mueller proposes to unite [Kyllinga] with , to which it is certainly nearly allied, …’. M in B74 11.01, p. 271 had cited Hasskarl’s unification under monocephalus.

hence I cannot a priore

a priori?

be held responsible for the union. You may have discovered more valid characteristics than were known before, to circumscribe . You are also not just to me in regard to my interpretation of the floral parts of ;

Bentham had considered the terminology for the flower parts of the grasses in a lecture at the Linnean Society in November 1876, and said

In the large familiar order of … the terminology adopted by botanists has been very unsettled, and repeatedly modified, since Linnaeus first endeavoured to assimilate the spikelet to a flower with its calyx and corolla. For these terms Jussieu substituted those of glume and calyx; and the latter name appears to be still retained by Baron F. von Mueller and a few others, notwithstanding that the absence of all homology between the so-called sepals in Grasses and those of perfect flowers has been so repeatedly demonstrated. (Bentham (1877), p. 513).

for

1, I did apply only to the inner glumes (glumellas) the term sepals, always distinguishing the outer glumes as bracts, thinking that the two glumellae represented each a solitary remnant of a sepaline whorl.

2, This view I found to be erroneous, after I more closely investigated the ; hence I corrected already in 1874 my views by a note at 282 of vol. VIII of the fragmenta.

B74.13.01, under Stipa aristiglumis.

In justice to myself this might have been also mentioned, for as your passage runs it would appear, that I regarded all glumes still as sepals up to the present date.

Regardfully yrs

Ferd. von Mueller

was united by Endlicher (gen. pl.)

Endlicher (1836-40), p. 113.

not by me with ; this I distinctly stated in the fragm.

B75.02.01, p. 39, under alpina.