The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: 19/12/93 ¶ ¶ This is the first mail, leaving for Europe, dear Sir Joseph, since I received from Dulau & Co the grand Kew-Index. What a splendid opus, to have the whole synonymy of Phanerogams up to 1...

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RBG Kew, Letters to Joseph Hooker, vol. 16, ff. 1-2. 93.12.19

Plant names

Bassia Erskineana
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- Australian Plant Name Index
Chenolea
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Citrosma
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Sapoteae
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Siparuna
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Joseph Hooker, 1893-12-19. 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/93-12-19>, accessed September 11, 2025

MS black-edged; M's nephew, George Doughty, died on 19 November 1893.

19/12/93

M wrote this date in the margin of a cutting from an unidentified newspaper that is pasted at the top of the folio. It may, however, represent the date of the source, not of M’s letter. The text of the cutting, 'Queensland. Brisbane, Sunday. Mr. F.M. Bailey, one of the recently retrenched civil servants, has been reappointed colonial botanist, at a salary of £200 per annum', appeared widely in newspapers between 18 and 23 December 1893, including in the Melbourne Argus and Age on 18 December. Bailey was reinstated from 1 January 1894.

This is the first mail, leaving for Europe, dear Sir Joseph, since I received from Dulau & Co the grand Kew-Index. What a splendid opus, to have the whole synonymy of Phanerogams up to 1885 before us! It will be an incalculably valuable gain, when the whole work is out, and I have no doubt, that you and Mr Jackson will be able to supplement it by to the end of our century, when not much will be left to be done.

Three exclamation marks have been added. Parts 1 and 2 of Index kewensis (B. Jackson (1895)) were published in 1893, and the remaining two parts of the original work in 1894 and 1895.

I am glad, seeing you supersede also by — Aublet['s]

editorial addition — Obscured by binding. All square brackets in the following text have this meaning.

names undoubtedly should stand, unless disqualified by creating 2 genera instead of one. There is far more labour, as you know from own lengthened practice to furnish a plate than a mere brief diagnosis. Thus I uphold Lamarck illustr.

For an example of M's use of a Lamarck plate without description as evidence of nomenclatural priority see M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 31 December 1881 (in this edition as 81-12-31b).

also. Am delighted, that you did not abandon Tournefort, as so many of the Moderns or Novices would have it. Nomenclature must rest on an unimbiased feeling of justice . That has been my reply to many communications, which I had on primogeniture also in plant names. I have by this mail again a heap of prints on this subject, which lot I have not yet time to read; but my unalterable reply will be again, that even if we have ever so many congresses or conferences or deliberations, they will be overthrown like all other unjust legislature, unless all arbitrariness is avoided. I often wonder, what they will think of us about the agitation now on priority of plants names, a hundred years hence. As I said, permanency and unanimity can only be secured by absolute justice.

Perhaps I may venture to point out occasional inaccuracy, unseparable from all human work and more especially so from a gigantic work like yours. Bass[ia] Erskineana is a Sapotaceous plant. I maintained the name Bassia at the time

1885, when M published (B85.04.01, p. 930).

yet for , calling Allionis genus before.

M described as a sapotaceous plant in B85.04.01, whereas in Index kewensis (B. Jackson (1895), vol. 1, part 1, p. 277, issued in September 1893) it was listed among the Chenopodiaceae in another genus named Bassia, erected in Allioni (1766), treated as superseded by (erected in Thunberg (1781), p. 9). Though M maintained Bassia among the Sapotaceae, as he says, he added at the end of his description: 'The generic name Bassia might well be changed to Illippe, as given by Koenig, as long ago as 1771 (Linné mantissa altera 563), inasmuch as Allioni five years earlier established already a genus Bassia among Salsolaceae'. Linné (1767-71), p. 563 (issued October 1871, TL2), indicated that Bassia longifollia is Koenig’s MS Illipe malabarorum. In B85.06.03 M himself transferred the species to Illipe. M had used in B76.10.01, pp. 91–2. Koenig’s Bassia is now regarded as ‘nom. illeg. later homonym non All. (1766)’ (IPNI, accessed 22 December 2019).

You will be gratified, that our exertions on Mr Bailey's behalf have been successful. I communicated with the hon. Aug. Gregory,

See J. Thomson to M, 27 November 1893.

pointing out that "as Pres. Austr. Assoc. he had for the time charge of Australian Science, and calling on him in that capacity to exercise his great influence for the benefit of Mr B."

With best festive salutation your

Ferd von Mueller

Will you kindly let Dr Dyer know about the […] &c.

two illegible words.

Of course no one is bound to accept decisions of Congresses which he did not attend