Document information

Physical location:

Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide, SA. 79.11.22

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Ralph Tate, 1879-11-22. 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/1870-9/1879/79-11-22-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

22/11/79.
In the "Flora",
1
Bentham (1863-78).
dear Prof. Tate, the localities are most scantily given, and thus also those of
Isoetopsis graminifolia

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. It is however recorded from the Murray River in S. Austr,
2
See Bentham (1863-78), vol. 3, p. 556.
where I found it already in 1848, when I gave this little plant the manuscript-name
Rhizocephalum angustifolium

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, recognizing it as a new genus. But a set of my manuscripts, soon subsequently forwarded for Europe, was lost in a wreck of a Ship at the Cape of Good Hope and before, after some delays, the new manuscripts arrived in Germany, (to be published in the Linnaea) Turczaninow, who received the same plant from W.A. published it in Moscou (1851).
3
Turczaninow (1851), p. 175. See also Lucas (1995).
So of course my earlier appellation was lost. Bentham, though with access to extensive manuscript notes on the range of very many species, (these notes being deposited at Kew) preferred to record only localities, from which he had actually seen specimens.
4
Tate evidently read a portion of M's letter to the meeting of the Royal Society of South Australia held on 2 December 1879, and 'advised that the Society do solicit Baron F. von Mueller to prepare a revised list, giving more detailed information, especially in regard to localities, an item in which the " Flora Australiensis" was deficient' (Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, vol. 3, p. xiv).
I have since recorded a vast number of "habitat" in the fragmenta, and will do so still more fully in the new edition of the Flora, which — deo volente
5
God willing.
— I hope yet to bring out, with all the additional species (about 700
6
800 deleted.
hitherto published) and all the corrections.
I am not the least surprised at the gross mistake made there
7
i.e. by Richard Schomburgk, director of the Adelaide Botanic Garden.
in naming the
Scaevola spinescens

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as
Lycium australe

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; altho' I have sent named specimens of the former often to Adelaide, and altho' any one who knew the meaning of the word Scaevola should recognize any species of that genus on a glance, when in flower.
8
I am not … flower has been crossed through with a single line.
Entre nous I may mention, that from the garden there
9
The sheets bearing the text that follows are filed separately from the first pages of the letter, but the continuity of the text shows that they are part of the same letter.
even for years the common Yorkshire fog (
Holcus lanatus

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) was sent out as the gigantic Tussockgrass of the Falkland-Islands (
Dactylis caespitosa

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); — and in a same manner paraded in public prints from the garden there for years the old Plinian & Dioscoridean
Andropogon Haleppensis

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as the Coapim of W. trop. Africa (
Panicum specabile

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)!
10
i.e. P. spectabile.
If you will kindly spare any extraspecimens of any kind of plant from new localities for my collection, you will get due credit for them in my works.
11
even for years … my works has been crossed through.
Well known plants of S.A., found by me thirty years, ago are in some instances left as S.A. unrecorded in the Flora, either by oversight in London, or for the reasons which I explained.
In 1860 I proved the
Ranunculus sessiliflorus

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of RBr as identical with R. parviflorus L. — I had it from many South Australian stations, as it is not uncommon in your Colony. Your Brachycome from the cliffs of the Bight
12
i.e. Great Australian Bight, WA and SA.
must be quite distinct from B. graminea, as your additional more developed specimen now proves. I wished much, that ripe fruit of it could be procured, as it may be a thick leaved form of a tender-leaved species, coast-plants usually becoming succulent.
Should the species (on obtaining ripe fruit) prove new, I will be happy to name it after you.
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.