Document information

Physical location:

Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide, SA. 83.10.29c

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Ralph Tate, 1883-10-29 [83.10.29c]. 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/1880-9/1883/83-10-29c-final.odt>, accessed June 13, 2026

29/10/83.
Yesterday, dear Prof. Tate, I intended to absolve your Kochia, but came to a standstill, as I could not find the specimens of K. triptera, to which, as you saw already, yours is nearest related. They are mislaid, which is pardonable with so little space at my command. So far as I remember K. triptera, it has larger fruits, but that is a very variable character in K. villosa.
Bentham found occasionally a fourth carina, and I see on yours the fifth sometimes diminutive. I should therefore be inclined to regard yours a variety; perhaps you have yourself K. triptera, and thus would be able to see, whether any other reliable differences existed between the two. As a var. or spec. this plant might be called by K (tr.) pentatropis; it would not well do, to name it K. pentaptera, as it has a sixth (horizontal) wing.
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Kochia pentatropis

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is described in Tate (1885), p. 67.
Have you any fossil leaf-impressions? I shall have something to do to our miocene layers in this respect. Baron Von Ettingshausen has just described a lot of pliocene leaves from Tasmania and N. S. Wales,
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Ettingshausen (1883).
but (êntre nous) on quite unreliable characteristics, referring some to living genera, when not even the ordinal position can be proved!
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.
Ettingshausen speaks very kindly of what I have done for the pliocene fruits
My cough is hardly any better. I hope your health has improved