Document information

Physical location:

ML DOC.3061, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. 87.03.09

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Charles Moore, 1887-03-09. 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/1880-9/1887/87-03-09-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

9/3/87
Dear Mr Moore,
So soon, as I learned from your letter,
1
Letter not found.
that the Phylloxera-Commission there desires to appoint an Inspector,
2
On 9 March 1887 the Phylloxera Board of NSW advertised for an Inspector with 'a practical knowledge of phylloxera insect…' (Sydney mornng herald, 9 March 1887, p. 16).
I wrote to Mr M'Alpine, who is the most eligible person here, so far as I know them, for being entrusted with that office, he having made the microscopic study of the diseases of plants a speciality. He came here from Edinburgh, where he was a Lecturer in natural sciences, about two years ago, and holds appointments on Ormond-College
3
University of Melbourne.
and on the School of Pharmacy; but probably he would prefer a Gov. Appointment, with prospects of Advancement in the service.
When I hear of him, I will let you know. If his service for this particular kind of work can be obtained for N.S.W., it will be a great advantage to your colony.
4
McAlpine remained in Victoria and in 1890 was appointed vegetable pathologist in the Department of Agriculture.
To the list of plants of your colony is still to be added
Aizoon zygophylloides

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.
I need not repeat, that I will be happy to afford you every aid in the elaboration of the Flora of N.S.W., even to the extent of revising the msc; — but I could not do justice to the work, unless it was framed on the arrangement of my Census;
5
B83.03.04.
if the sequence of the orders and genera and the limitation of the genera and species was to be according to the Flora Australiensis,
6
Bentham (1863-78).
and the law of priority is not to prevail in corrected nomenclature, your book would be quite "behind the times"; and I see endless difficulties, to reconcile the two arrangements. As a mere example I would briefly say, as I have no leisure to quote numerous cases, that even at Kew such genera as
Polanisia

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are given up. A careful monographer on the Continent working out the
Tiliaceae

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, abolished also
Echinocarpus

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, merging it, as first done by me, into
Sloanea

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.
7
Schumann (1886), p 170; B83.03.04, p. 17.
The description of
Euroschinus falcatus

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in the Flora
8
Bentham (1863-78), vol. 1, pp. 490-1.
is partly composed of that plant and partly of
Ganophyllum falcatum

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, a plant of a different order even. Look on the plates of
Eremophila

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s and
Pholidia

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s in my Atlas, and you will see the impossibility of keeping them generically apart.
9
See B86.08.05. Bentham (1863-78), vol. 4, assigned to
Pholidia

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a number of forms that M had described as species of
Eremophila

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, but in B83.03.04, M restored them to
Eremophila

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.
These and hundreds of other things corrected by my Fragmenta and my Census, have been recognized as correct by Prof Tate, a man of great research, in his dealing with S.A plants; and I should feel much humbled, if my superior experiences in Australia, a land never visited by Bentham, were set aside in any local Floras here. But it is not my private feeling on the subject, which prompts me, to urge on you the adoption of the Census, but my persuasion that my views are the correct ones after 40 years of study in Australia. Moreover the Flora could not be largely used and followed without permission of the publisher, who would likely object to the transcribing as undue competition.
10
In C. Moore (1893), ‘the systematic arrangement adopted … is that of Baron von Mueller in his “Census of Australian Plants”’ (p. xiv). The accompanying dichotomous keys to the genera and species follow ‘the same form as that invented by Dr. J. Neger in his “Flora of Germany”, published in Nürnberg in 1871’ (p. xii).
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.
Proteaceae

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have true petals, but the calyx reduced as in many spec. of
Rhododendron

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[...]
Eriostemon

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&c. Even
Loranthaceae

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B. & H. had lately among monochlamydeae!