Ferdinand von Mueller

1

MS is a fragment, and has attached to it M's herbarium label inscribed by M: 'Geissois Benthami. FvM. Tweed. 1883. Scortechini', which provides the basis for the date. However, the Tweed River, which marks the boundary between NSW and Qld, is some distance from Tambourine Mountain; the label may therefore have belonged originally to a different specimen, leaving the dating uncertain.

Geissois sp? Saxifrageae

Tambourine Mountain

2

Qld.

It is evidently a Geissois, and probably the same of which Bentham makes mention as coming in fruit from Hastings river.

3

NSW. Bentham (1863-78), vol 2, pp. 446: 'The genus [Geissois] is from New Caledonia, where there are 3 or 4 species, but there also appears to be an Australian one, although our specimens are insufficient for defining it. A detched raceme of old capsules with the seeds fallen out, from Cloud's Creek, Hastings river, Beckler, much resembles those from New Caledonia'.

I gathered the racemes on the ground, and could not discover the tree they came from. The leaves which accompany the flowers are not from the tree wherefrom the racemes dropped. They may belong to Weinmannia. On the probable supposition that the capsules and leaves from the Hastings belong to the same species to which my flowers belong, there is enough material for a description of a species of Australian Geissois. I cannot have access to any description of the Caledonian species, so I cannot say whether this Geissois from Tambourine is specifically distinct from the New Caledonian ones. You certainly possess these New Caledonian Geissoises described, or in the Herbarium, and shall be able therefore to settle the point at once.

4

Although M described G eissois benthamiana in B65.04.10, p. 16, he does not list a Geissois species in B83.03.04, treating it as a W e inmannia.