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Gray Herbarium Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 90.05.06

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Sereno Watson, 1890-05-06. 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/1890-6/1890/90-05-06-final.odt>, accessed May 7, 2026

1
MS black-edged; M's brother-in-law George Doughty died on 26 March 1890.
6/5/90.
This day, dear Prof Watson, arrived the new edition of Gray's Manuel,
2
Manual? i.e. A. Gray (1890).
which you in conjunction with Prof Coulter and with the aid of local workers have been able to issue. It is a worthy following up of your great preceptor's work in this particular direction. I presume, you will gradually take in the evascular Acotyledoneae also, as you commenced to do with the Jungermanniaceae. You doubtless felt reluctant, to make at once any great change in the systematic arrangement out of piety to Asa Gray, who in his turn was unwilling to depart from the sequence of the orders as reversed merely from Jussieu by D.C.
3
A. P. de Candolle.
— But you will concede, that a natural system cannot be perfect, so long as the
Apetaleae

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are kept by themselves. If we only think of the unnatural position e.g. of
Salsolaceae

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, kept nearly at one end of the Dicotyledoneae, while
Caryophylleae

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are near the other end! The
Salsolaceae

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, as we are all aware, are only less developed
Curvembryonatae

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(or
Amyliferae

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), just as
Dodonaea

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in
Sapindaceae

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,
Alchemilla

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in
Rosaceae

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,
Anemone

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in
Ranunculaceae

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,
Glaux

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in
Primulaceae

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&c &c. Since the last 25 years I have abolished the
Monochlamydeae

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in all my writings as such, and I can use the "Census"
4
B83.03.04.
with far more facility than the "Flora Austral."
5
Bentham (1863-78).
This day I have posted to Prof Coulter the "second Census",
6
B89.12.03, an enlarged edition of B83.03.04.
so that he may see my arrangements, as emanating from the study of Australian plants since 50 years (if I include, what I observed from 1840-1846 on plants of Australia in European gardens.) Perhaps you like to send to your Collaborator this letter, as it may lead you to consultations, whether the change, recommended by me, could be adopted for further editions of the Manual.
Have you a specimen of
Buckleya

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to spare? I have long been eager to examine its structure myself.
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.
If your aquatic Jussieua has the petals quite yellow it will likely be J. diffusa, as the genuine J. repens has the petals white except the base; that plant has never yet been found in Australia.
Can
Hydrocotyle interrupta

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always be distinguished from H. vulgaris?
7
The sentence is in the centre margin of the second sheet, between pages 6 and 7.