Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M46, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 78.03.08a

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

William Woolls to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1878-03-08 [78.03.08a]. 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/1870-9/1878/78-03-08a-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

1
MS found with a specimen of
Cassinia quinquefaria

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(MEL 1582749), collected by Woolls in 1878.
Richmond N.S.W
March 8 /78
My dear Doctor,
I have recd your letters in reference to Capparis Mitchellii ,
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Letters not found.
& additional localities for plants. I have only one of the Capers in my possession & that a small one, but I have spoken to a drover who is going to the Namoi,
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Namoi River, NSW.
& he has promised to get some for me, which I hope some day to forward to you.
When I have leisure, I will pay attention to the other matter.
Will you kindly clear up a little difficulty for me? I was under the impression that we had only the blue Commelyna
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CommelIna?
(C. cyanea ) at Port Jackson.
5
NSW.
That is certainly the only kind in many damp places in the county of Cumberland. But it appears that, on the Darling Point Road near Sydney, the yellow or sulphur coloured one occurs, of which I enclose a specimen.
Now is this plant a distinct species, or a mere variety? The plants & their habit are for the most part alike, but they differ in the colour of the flower, & the length of the pedicels. I think also that one of the petals in the yellow one is smaller than the other two.
Is the yellow one Brown's C. lanceolata ?
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R. Brown (1810), p. 269.
Will you kindly give me your opinion on the subject?
I have sent a paragraph
7
Woolls has marked an asterisk here and added a note at the end of the letter.
to the Herald in reference to Sutherland's omission of your name & labours.
8
Sydney morning herald, 8 March 1878, p. 5, notes that 'a correspondent [i.e. Woolls] calls our attention to the fact that, in some of the recent works on Australian history, Baron F. von Mueller's services to the country have been perhaps unintentionally overlooked', before detailing these services at some length. Woolls's ire had evidently been sparked by Alexander and George Sutherland's History of Australia from 1606 to 1876 (Melbourne, 1877), in which M is not mentioned.
I hope the Editor will insert it. Perhaps the omission was unintentional, & if Mr Sutherland's attention were drawn to the subject, he might do you justice in the next edition of his book. I give Cunningham great credit for what he did, but it is too bad to ignore your labours
I think that the plant I forwarded the other day is not
Lepyrodia

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, but
Cladium

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.
With best wishes
Yours very sincerely
W. Woolls
Baron F. von Mueller C.M.G.
Melbourne
P.S. Are Cassinia laevis & C. quinquefaria distinct?
* You will see the Paragraph in to-day's Herald . I have just recd the review of the Grasses
9
Woolls's anonymous review of 'Australian grasses' was published in the Sydney morning herald, 15 March 1878, p. 6. The bulk of the review is an analysis and report of the treatment that Bentham gave to the grasses in Bentham (1863-78), vol. 7, pp. 419-672, clearly based on the sheets that M had received from Bentham, as the review commented that the volume 'may be shortly expected to arrive'. It includes a list of the genera, including the names of two genera erected by Bentham, and one where he preserved M's name. The sheets had probably been received by M soon after he returned from WA in January, as he made some comments on them in M to G. Bentham, 28 February 1878, but did not mention them in letters to Bentham earlier in 1878 that included comment on earlier sheets of the volume. They must however have been received early enough for Woolls to have seen the copy and prepare his review.