The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: ¶ On landing under Mr. Gregory in North-West Australia (September, 1856), I settled at once and finally the exact systematic position of this extraordinary tree on spots of its growth as Adansonia Gr...

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94.09.00a

Plant names

Adansonia Gregorii
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Adansonia digitate
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Brachychiton
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Malvaceae
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Sterculia
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Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to the Editor of the Australasian, 1894-09 [94.09.00a]. 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/1890-6/1894/94-09-00a-final.odt>, accessed June 10, 2026

Letter not found. For the text given here, see Australasian, 22 September 1894, p. 524 (B94.09.03): ‘Baron von Mueller has favoured us with the subjoined note:—‘.

M's note is almost certainly in response to a request from the editors for a comment on the topic. It follows a letter from Aneas (sic: Aeneas) Gunn commenting upon an illustration of the tree published on 12 May, p. 827, where it was referred to as rupestris. Gunn pointed out that the image was known locally as 'Gregory's tree' and 'bears date 2 July 1856', and commented

There appears to be some confusion as to the generic name of the tree. Alan Cunningham, the botanist on Captain King's voyages, identifies it as a tree of 'the natural order Capparidea," and was thought to be a capparis. Captain Stokes and Sir George Grey were both puzzled to determine its family, and, in your description, you refer to it as a rupestris. Baron Von Mueller, who was botanist to Gregory's party, speaks of it as the , which practically makes it kin to the African boabab. What is the correct name?

On landing under Mr. Gregory in North-West Australia (September, 1856), I settled at once and finally the exact systematic position of this extraordinary tree on spots of its growth as , then the second boabab tree, to which since a third from Madagascar has been added. It differs from the African , among other characteristics, in the short fruit stalks, by which the tree gets a distinct aspect, even at a distance. If Mr. Gunn’s very interesting remark of the occurrence of some such a tree also in North Queensland is to signify that the Adansonia extends so far east,

In his letter, Gunn wrote 'Popularly the tree is known throughout the Northern Territory, North Queensland, and the two Kimberleys as either a boabab, a bottle tree, or a gouty stem'.

then I have to say that any trees of similar aspect in North-Eastern Australia belong to the genus (closely allied to ), because the is restricted to North-Western Australia, as I had full opportunities of ascertaining this when travelling with Mr. Gregory across the whole breadth of the Australian continent in 1856. If vernacular distinctions were drawn between these trees by restricting the name gouty-stem tree to the Adansonia, and the name bottle-trees to the s, no further confusion thus far between these trees could arise, the Adansonias belonging to the , the s to the .

In a letter written to Sir William Hooker from the Victoria River on the 18th June, 1856, after returning as one of the three companions of Mr. Gregory from Sturt’s Creek (then discovered), of Central Australia, I gave a systematic account of the before we started across the continent to Moreton Bay. This reference appeared already in Hooker’s Kew Miscellany vol. viii., page 322 (1856),

B56.11.01, p. 322.

before we returned into settlements after 16 months’ travels, the coastlines for 5,000 miles then being entirely unoccupied.

I may still add, that an account of the , with a woodcut (from a painting by the late Mr. Baines, the artist of the expedition), appeared already in Lindley’s and Th. Moore’s very popular Treasury of Botany, in 1857.

The first edition of the Treasury was not published until 1866, but it does contain an engraving of Adansonia gregorii (Lindley & Moore (1866), vol. 1, p. 18), in the article on Adansonia signed by A.A.B. [i.e., Allan A. Black]; the engraving is not attributed.