Document information

Physical location:

RB MSS M127, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 82.04.22

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Benedetto Scortechini to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1882-04-22. 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/1880-9/1882/82-04-22-final.odt>, accessed June 13, 2026

1
MS annotation by M: 'Answ 1/5/82'. Letter not found.
Logan Village
2
Qld.
22d April 1882
Dear Baron
Many thanks for the VIII decade of your monograph of the Eucalypts,
3
B82.13.17.
and many more thanks too for your thoughtfulness in naming the
Mezoneuron

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after me.
4
Named in B82.04.03, p. 73, as
Mezoneuron

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Scortechinii.
By last mail I received a communication from the London L. S.
5
Linnean Society.
in which my admission among the fellows was notified to me. Let me express my thanks to you for the part you took in it.
6
M, together with F. M. Bailey and L. A. Bernays, nominated Scortechini for the Linnean Society on 1 December 1881 (see M to the Linnean Society of London, September 1881 (in this edition as 81-09-00b)); he was elected on 19 January 1882.
Most of the specimens of my last sending were gathered around Bundaberg, which is a large township north of Maryborough, about fifty miles from it, on the Burnett river. Gin Gin is a railway station on the line from Bundaberg to Mount Perry, takes its name from a creek, which in turn gives it to a large tract of country around there. Southport is a rising place at the mouth of Nerang Creek, a sea-side place of resort within Queensland territory about fifteen miles from Point Danger.
The petals of
Saccopetalum Bidwillii

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Benth. are dark-purple. In the dry specimens the colour changes very little into a deeper tint. The shrub from which I plucked the flowers and others I saw are little over ten feet in height. It is weak with slender branches, of which there are many.
In my next sending I shall include
Rhizophora mucronata

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. As I have been so much away from home lately, my recent specimens are heaped up in confusion, and it would take some time in hunting up any one of them. After a fortnight from this I shall have a little rest at home, and then I hope to be able to arrange my collection properly. I enclose now a specimen of
Polyosma Cunninghamii

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J. J. Ben. (Saxifr.) which I picked up in a hurried visit I paid to Tallebudgera before yesterday, another Queensland habitat, and so we have the two Polyosmas. Perhaps it won't come too late to be added to your census.
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In his Census (B83.03.04), M recorded Polyosma cunninghamii as a NSW species only. Its occurrence in Qld was added in his second Census (B89.12.03).
I always get novelties down there. If those scrubs were thoroughly searched, heaven knows how many new plants may come to light! I should like to spend a few days there in a good season with some settler, who is falling scrubs. — I send included herein a flower of an
Eugenia

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I got there. It clearly belongs to the section
Jambosa

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. This was the only flower in the tree I saved in my pocket-book. The stamens were falling off so quickly that I could not save more. I left some specimens down there to show inflorescence and fruit. The inflorescence is paniculate and terminal, the fruit is urceolate — crowded by the persistent lobes of the calyx. The panicles are large and somewhat trichotomous The scent of the flowers calls to mind that of the home honey-suckle. When I go down again will get the dried specimens and forward them to you.
In mentioning the localities of
Eucalyptus erythronema

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Turck, you have Mount Lindsay for it. Surely it cannot be our Mount Lindsay. There must be two mountains going by the same name.
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M's locality record for E. erythronema is 'Towards the remotest eastern sources of Swan-River and also near Mt Lindsay' (B82.13.17). Mt. Lindsay (also as 'Mt Lindesay') is near Denmark, WA. Scortechini here refers to Mt Lindsay, Qld, probably the one in the SE corner of the state on the NSW and Qld border (also as 'Mt Lindesay'), whence there are many specimens collected by him in Australian herbaria. A much less likely possibility is Mt Lindsay between Mt Isa and Cloncurry, Qld.
With the kindest regards I remain
Your humble servant
B Scortechini
9
The following two notes are on two separate small sheets, and may not belong to the letter. The second note has been pasted to a sheet of 20th-century Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne letterhead, with annotations by J. H. Willis.
416
Nephelium sp?
Sapindaceae

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.
Teviot, tributary of the Logan
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The Logan River is near the Mt Lindsay in SE Qld.
.
The fruit points to a Nephelium and close to N. connatum. Perhaps it is N. semicinereum, of which I have seen no description
172
Loranthus bifurcatus

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Benth. Loranthaceae
11
MS annotation by M: 'L. pendulus Sieber.'
Logan River
It seems to answer to this description but being a tropical Loranthus I doubt its existence down here
1881
12
Annotation, not in M's handwriting: 'Scoterchini'.