Ferdinand von Mueller

1

MS found with a specimen of Coprosma moorei (MEL 654170). While the specimen sheet is filed as Coprosma moore i, it has M's label 'Coprosma Pertriei Cheesman | Mt Wellington | 1892 Rodway'. It is annotated by M 'Rec & answ 16/2/93'. See also the associated letter, L. Rodway to M, 19 December 1892, also filed with the sheet.

Hobart,

Feb 14th. /93

Dear Baron,

I have forwarded specimen[s]

2

Text cramped at edge of page.

of our small blue-fruiting Coprosma to Mr Petrie thinking it would interest him. I have just heard in reply and he says:-

"The little Coprosma included is quite distinct from C. Petriei Ch.

3

In M to L. Rodway, 22 December 1892 (in this edition as 92-12-22a), M identified as C. Petriei the specimen sent with M to L. Rodway, 19 December 1892.

The latter is always bisexual & the corolla of the male plant is very different with long exserted stamens. It is more a

Nertera

Search for Nertera in

• This website
• VicFlora
• Australian Plant Name Index

than a Coprosma but it almost completely fills up the gap between the genera & justifies the Baron's view that the two genera should be merged into one.

4

M had united the genera in B75.12.01, p. 186.

It is a most interesting plant."

Considering the plant to be a new species would you sanction my describing it as C. Moorei, he having been the first to find it, before our Royal Society?

5

In his reply, M to L. Rodway ,16 February 1893, M reminded Rodway that he had suggested that if the flowers showed the species was new it should be named after Moore (see B92.06.02 p. 14) and asserted that he 'ought not be excluded from the final elucidation of this plant'. Rodway (1894), p. 179 (read 14 November 1893), described it as C. moorei, giving M as the authority and writing that 'with von Müeller's sanction, I have described it under the name of its original discoverer'. The published description and the following MS description filed with the letter differ in minor ways. There are no 'additional remarks' by M that in M to L. Rodway, 16 February 1893, he suggested he would add. It is not certain whether the MS description was included with the letter or was sent later to obtain M's 'sanction'.

Coprosma Moorei

Search for Coprosma Moorei in

• This website
• Australian Plant Name Index

, F.v.M. A small prostrate, creeping, glabrous, perennial; branches slender, mostly 2 to 4 in. long, often rooting at the nodes. Leaves ovate to ovate-lanceolate. Spreading, thick & shining, concave, acute, narrowed below into a short petiole, mostly 1½ to 2½ lines long; stipules simply interpetiolar but with two minute subulate lobes at the junction. Flowers solitary, sessile, & terminating short erect branchlets, hermaphrodite. Calyx broadly oblong, about 1 line long, slightly compressed below the lobes; lobes 4 broad, acute rather less than half as long as the tube. Corolla campanulate, about 1 line long, lobes 4, broad, acute, nearly as long as the tube. Stamens 4 free from the corolla & inserted at its base; filaments slightly exceeding the corolla; anthers, erect ovate, slightly apiculate. Style divided nearly to the base into 2 slender filiform papillose lobes about half again as long as the stamens, maturing rather before the stamens are fully developed. Ovary 2-celled. Fruit blue broadly oval about 3 lines long crowned by the persistent calyx-lobes. Pyrenes 2, pale brown, smooth, broadly ovate but flattened on one side, suspended from the top of the inflated mesocarp, each 1 seeded. Embryo minute in a copious albumen.

Nr Mt. Tyndal, J.

6

error for T?

B. Moore; Mt, Wellington, L.R.