Ferdinand von Mueller

22/7/80.

Australia is very poor in palms & bamboos, dear Sir Joseph,

1

At this time Hooker was working on the palms for Bentham & Hooker (1862–83), published in Volume 3, part 3, in April 1883. He had asked M for assistance in enhancing the collection of Australian palms; see J. Hooker to M, 28 May 1880.

and where perhaps an odd one might yet be got, there the natives are savage & murderous, as poor Kennedy's disastrous expedition showed.

2

On his third expedition into northern Australia, in 1848, Edmund Kennedy was killed by Aborigines.

I rather meet a lion in Central Africa than a Cannibal in N. E. Australia; fever is also quite alike bad at either part of the world. Still I keep my eyes on this region & will watch any safe opportunity to get something from there, though I have no high expectations, after Rockingham Bay district became extensively searched. I hope, you will not dissect the palm genera in the manner done by Scheffer, Wendland & Drude. Even Beccari is not conservative enough.

3

Scheffer described a number of palm species, but the most likely references are Scheffer (1873) or (1876); the other references are almost certainly to H. Wendland & Drude (1875) (see M to G. Bentham, 12 February 1877) and volume 1 of Beccari (1877-90), which is cited by M in B78.11.04, pp. 57-8, and is the only major work on palms published by Beccari before the date of this letter.