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78.10.11c

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to the Gardeners' Chronicle, 1878-10-11 [78.10.11c]. 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/1870-9/1878/78-10-11c-final.odt>, accessed May 7, 2026

1
Letter not found. The text given here is from 'Foreign correspondence', Gardeners' chronicle, 14 December 1878, p. 762 (B78.12.02).
Melbourne: Oct. 11
I have already written to you from the Murrumbidgee River about the extraordinary frequency of two of the dwarf salt-bushes from the Murrumbidgee to the Lachlan River, and beyond.
2
M to the Gardeners' chronicle, September 1878 (in this edition as 78-09-29a).
The traveller may pass over plains unbroken as far as the eye reaches, and these almost exclusively occupied by
Atriplex vesicaria

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and A. halimoides. Both bushes are nutritious to sheep, and will sustain also horses and cattle, especially in seasons of drought. I was told that the heat has exceptionally there culminated in 175° Fahr. in the sun, and 125° in the shade. This frightful heat, which drives birds into the buildings of the settlers, does not shrivel the
Salsolaceae

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, nor the foliage of the
Eucalyptus rostrata

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and some others; and there are besides numerous other plants which will bear this intense temperature, which far exceeds that given by Sachs
3
Sachs (1874), pp. 697-8.
as the limit of heat which a general vegetation will endure. I had an opportunity when on the Lachlan to trace a great many of the southern species so far northerly, whilst again a few tropical plants were found nearly as far south as the Murrumbidgee: for instance, Apophyllum anomalum,
Goodenia cycloptera

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occurred in extraordinary abundance,
Clianthus Dampieri

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grows here, not on sand, but on a firm loamy ground; it is a glorious object, visible at long distances. Some of the plains were quite white with
Helipterum floribundum

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, of which stock are very fond; other vast tracts have a violet tinge from the flowers of
Swainsona procumbens

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. I found on the Lachlan River also the curious
Geococcus pusillus

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, which, like
Cardamine chenopodifolia

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, buries its pods in the soil for maturation.
Senecio platylepis

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, previously known only from one spot, occurs on the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee Rivers millionfold,
Ferd. von Mueller.