Document information

Physical location:

RB MSSS M1, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 78.09.14

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Henry Hance to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1878-09-14. 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/1870-9/1878/78-09-14-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

1
MS found with a specimen of Chamaeraphis (MEL 248420). MS annotation by M: 'Answ Febr. 79'. Letter not found.
H. B. M.
2
Her Britannic Majesty's.
Consulate, Canton,
14. Sept. 1878.
My dear Baron von Mueller,
A perusal of the original and independent classification of Grasses in the "Flora Australiensis"
3
Bentham (1863-78), vol. 7, pp. 419-670.
has caused me to go back to one of mes premiers amours , in the shape of a Chamae rha phis on which I wrote a notice ten years ago. (Seem. Journ. Bot, VI, 109.)
4
Hance (1868), where the genus is given as Chamaeraphis, the more usual spelling.
Though some of Bentham's changes — such as the removal of
Isachne

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&
Coelachne

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from the neighbourhood of
Panicum

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(your
Micraira

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I do not know), seem to me rather startling, yet I was truly glad to find that he retained Chamaerhaphis as a genus.
Panicum

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, indeed, as it stands in Steudel,
5
Steudel (1855), part 1, pp. 37-99.
is such an unwieldy aggregate of very diverse species, that I have always felt a sympathy with the views of Grisebach, as given in the "Flora rossica" of Ledebour,
6
Ledebour (1842-52), vol. 4, p. 324, at the opening of the discussion of the grasses, cites a MS of Grisebach dated 1852.
who I believe was more disposed to dismember it than anyone else; but the question is how really stable characters can be found for these groups. When I first sent our grass to Kew, I supposed it might be C. aspera , N. ab E.
7
i.e. C. G. D. Nees von Esenbeck, whose name for the species is recorded in Wallich (1828-49), specimen no. 8679.
(of which at the time I had no specns. at all), and it also seemed quite certainly Griffith's Pseudorhaphis
8
Pseudoraphis?
Brunoniana , figured in his Icones pl. asiat. iii. t. 145.
9
Griffith (1847-54), part 3, fig. i of plate 145, and the associated text in Griffith (1847-54a), part 3, p. 29.
Both Bentham & Munro, however, were inclined to refer the Chinese grass to C. hordeacea , R. Br., whilst Munro said Griffith's was = C. depauperata , N. ab E.
10
Unpublished comments to Hance, reported in Hance (1868), p. 110.
It seems impossible that at Kew, where the reliquiae Griffithianae were distributed, there could be any mistake as to the plant he intended; and yet it is incontestable that his figure is very unlike authentic specimens of C. depauperata , and exactly like our Canton ones! Now, however, it appears that Bentham could not at that time have known C. hordeacea , of which it would seem there are no specns. in Europe, except those originally gathered by Rob. Brown.
11
Robert Brown (1773-1858) collected in Australia, 1801-05.
So that things are altogether "a good deal mixed", as they say in the United States. I see that Bentham reduces C. aspera to C. spinescens , Poir., a name cited by no previous author, and now considers the Chinese plant, — contrary to his former decision, — to belong here.
12
Bentham (1863-78), vol 7, p. 498.
I am one of those who have never had any leaning to the system of wholesale reduction in favour at Kew, often depending entirely on theoretical considerations, though I know you too are inclined to follow in the same direction; but my objection certainly does not arise from any abstract preference for analysis, for I quite concur with the general views followed out in the 'Genera plantarum.' Without knowing the Australian C. spinescens , I still remain most distinctly of opinion that the Chinese grass is as different from C. aspera as from C. depauperata .
Very good specimens of our species have been again met with last spring, and I send you now a supply of these, with a request that, if you can possibly spare me a named specn. of each of your different Australian forms, you will kindly do so. I have another from Arracan
13
Arakan? A British imperial administrative division, on the eastern seaboard of the Bay of Bengal, now part of Myanmar.
— which, if not new, may be the same as Brown's
Panicum abortivum

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.
Your genera
Xerochloa

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,
Amphipogon

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,
Potamophila

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,
Heterachne

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,
Diplopogon

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, and
Cetrosia

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14
Hance clearly wrote '
Cetrosia

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', but this was almost certainly a transposition error for Ectrosia.
are all unknown to me.
I do hope we may get Munro's Rvision of all Grasses in a year or two.
I am,
My dear Baron,
Very sincerely yours,
H. F. Hance.