To George Bentham   20 February 1863

Melbourne bot Garden

20/2/63

My dear Mr Bentham.

I am in possession of your highly interesting letter, dated 22 Dec 62.¹ and am glad to hear of the rapid progress of your researches for the "Australian flora". Though we differ considerably in our views on the limits of genera & species, of which you admit many more than I am inclined to do, I look forward with the greatest pleasure to the issue of your volume, as it will be for all times the foundation & complete framework of future researches on our plants.

The Oldfieldian Collections formed last year,² and which are supplemental to the mainlot of Rutaceae will have given some additions. They come in the care of the "Great Britain" & now I have the pleasure to announce the despatch (simultaneous with this letter) of a box of Thalamiflorae supplemental to all my former collections. This box will go by the mailsteamer to Kew under Sir Will. Hookers adress, but I am not sure that I shall have a bill of loading, as the consignment will probably be put on the free list.³

You will find many interesting plants in it. Ahead of these stands Cakile maritima , discovered by myself on my trip to Phillip Island, where it grows abundantly as well as on the opposite western coast (& perhaps elsewhere about Western Port.) In the list I furnish with this letter I will more fully refer to this plant. Could it be an introduction? and if so why grows it not on any other part of the wide australian coast, over so many tracts of which my personal observations extends? If it grew elsewhere why did I not recognize a plant so familiar to me since, I may say, my childhood

Did the french Expedition⁴ early this century drop accidentally seeds of the plant in some Emballage at Western port, which they visited?; and did it thence gradually spread around that large bay & had not time to progress further? I may mention that I see no other European plant in its company, that is restricted to the coast. But I find with it Atriplex crystallinum⁵ J. Hook, which I had not seen before on any part of the Australian Continent⁶

The box contains my Thalamiflorae from the last alpine trip, & from Phillip Island; further the Thalamiflorae of Howitts Expedition, of J. Macd. Stuarts last great Expedition & of Mr Maxwells five-monthly journey to the western part of the Great Australian Bight, further some Thalamiflorae recently received from Mr Joseph Nernst of Ipswich Queensland & finally the first installment of the collections formed on our Expense for this department by Mr Dallachy in Queensland and who is now located at the ranges of the Fitzroy River in the vicinity of Keppel Bay. I believe you will receive these plants in time for supplemental pages of your 1 vol, before it is completed in print. The Zygophyllum Howittii is highly remarkable for its 3-winged one-seeded indehiscent fruits. I am just completing a botanical appendix for Howitts journal.⁷ Maxwells collections are purchased by me at not inconsiderable expenses. I intend finishing a new number of the fragmenta,⁸ which is partially in type since months, but which in consequence of my travels was not completed before. This will probably bring the 3. vol to a close with a full index.⁹ I intend to print then the Leguminosae for the flora of Victoria,¹⁰ if my health permits me to work in such an uninterrupted manner, as the elucidation of that Great Order requires. I regret to say, that I feel the effect of overexertions of former years, as well in travels as house-work, & did not my duties to your work demand steady action I would probably cease working for about a year for the sake of my health.

I fully concur in your suggestion of reducing some of the Australian genera of Leguminosae.¹¹ Sclerothamnus is certainly only an Eutaxia. Euchilus & Spadostylis¹² are Pultneaea, for if we admit species with opposite & alternate leaves in Spadostylis we can admit both to Pultenaea.

Have you readily a spare copy of your Leguminosae for Martius¹³ to give away? if so I should be thankful for it, because I do not keep the Flora Brasiliens., having no vote for books & finding it almost beyond my slender private means to acquire for my library all that is needed even for my botanic works on Australia. I am glad the box pr "Great Britain" arrived Will you kindly on return cause a little roughly squeezed paper to be placed between the fascicles of the herbarium in the box, so that the lower strat[a] may not suffer from too great a pressure?

I had not sufficient leisure to make so extensive extracts of my journal on Thalamiflorae as I intended but I have given some (and what I consider the main-ones) from my notes on Gregorys Expedition.¹⁴ It would be well for you to have a glance over my manuscripts at Kew.¹⁵ You find thus a very elaborate description of Adansonia, drawn up from a multitude of fresh plants.¹⁶ The fruit is not carefully described, but a large quantity of it was sent to Kew. The few capsules I kept were used in raising this plant.

Dr Hooker will be pleased to hear that I found on Phillip Island Cyathodes divaricata & Atriplex crystallinum.¹⁷ — I cannot see, how Cakile maritima, C. Americana & C. aequalis are to be distinguished. My American specimens have generally the lower part of the silique fertile, whilst my baltic & north sea specimens are mostly one-seeded. It seems Cakile was not previously found anywhere in the Southern hemisphere.

By the "Suffolk" I shipped (freight paid) on the 20 January 1863 21 parcels Leguminosae in one box, being box No. 9. It contains, as mentioned in my last letter¹⁸ chiefly Extravictorian genera of Leguminosae.

From Moreton Bay two collectors sent as a wild plant Stigmatophyllum ciliatum. I can see no difference from the Brazil [specimen]¹⁹ which I have from the Berlin bot. Garden. So it must be a Garden fugitive; but perhaps it would be best to allude to the fact under Malpighiaceae. Will you kindly let me know, whether my letters by the Columb[o]²⁰ mail are entirely lost? I hardly remember, what I sent & wrote at the particular time, so as to restore it[.]²¹ I am grateful for your promise of sending back the Rutaceae &c when done; as it is part of a public collection, there is occasional demand for these things. Of Ryssopterys I have just received specimens in flower, which prove the petals yellow. The plant is thus nearer [R. c]hrysantha²² Hassk than to R. tiliaefolia, to which I formerly referred fruit-specimina. Will you, if the plant is new, allow me to dedicate it to you?

Tristellateia Australis (or Australiae as called in the plate) I know only from Richards figure²³

Pittosporum ferrugineum I have now in flower from the Fitzroy River. Is it really also an African plant? and if so is ours really the same. The range of the other Pittospora seems local. I do not find any notice of it in your Niger Flora²⁴ nor in Wight & Arnott prodr,²⁵ nor in Thwaites enum²⁶ nor in Miquels Ind. Batav.²⁷

Pittosporum ferrugin. var filarium is according to Rumphs figure²⁸ quite a different plant with large fruits

Ever yours

Ferd Mueller

Pardon me for expressing the hope, that you will not spoil your fine work by quotations of any indiagnostified synonyms.²⁹

Possibly you may have amongst Rob. Brown's plants my second species of Nematolepis, for which I adopted the name N. Euphemiae, as the vicinity of Cape Arid was visited by Flinders Expedition

In your last letter, in which you refer to allied genera, no mention is made of any increment of Nematolepis. Should my plant not be in type with you already, you would confer a favor in adopting Miss Euphemia Hendersons name for its specific designation, since I am anxious to do honor in your first volume to this highly intelligent lady, whose character is admirably symbolized in her christian name.

The loss of the letters pr Columbian is vexatious. I keep no copies of ordinary (not strictly official) correspondence and hence I do really not know what the notes were I sent pr Columbian, otherwise I could restore them.³⁰

Adansonia

Atriplex crystallinum

Cakile aequalis

Cakile Americana

Cakile maritima

Cyathodes divaricata

Euchilus

Eutaxia

Leguminosae

Malpighiaceae

Nematolepis Euphemiae

Pittosporum ferrugineum

Pittosporum ferrugineum var filarium

Pultenaea

Rutaceae

Ryssopterys chrysantha

Ryssopterys tiliaefolia

Spadostylis