From George Bentham   25 April 1863

London April 25 /63

25 Wilton Place SW

My dear Sir

By this mail via Southampton I sent you 12 more sheets of the Flora. I now send to be shipped per "Prince of Wales" 4 boxes containing all the remainder of your plants belonging to this volume — I shall send the bill of lading next mail. I have still the Droseraceæ and two or three other small parcels which come into the next.

Just received yours of the 20th February — some specimens you sent per mail to Sir W. Hooker — the box of supplemental Thalamiflorae — and the box of Leguminosae — all received safe.

You again urge me not to publish as synonyms temporary names unaccompanied by diagnoses — I have already said that I do not take up mere manuscript names — but where names have been printed and published, if they are not mentioned in a work like this it will always be supposed that I had not seen them and German botanists, at least will enumerate them as "species not satis notae." I see no way of avoiding this but by great caution in not giving names to specimens untill they have been sufficiently investigated to be tolerably safe from error. Names once launched by a botanist of your known experience and knowledge of Australian Plants are adopted and entered into Systems and Compilations and must in some manner be disposed of. However I do not think you will have to complain of my having quoted any uselessly.

With regard to the loose plants sent to Sir W. Hooker Nematolepis Euphemiae is my Phebalium Baxteri¹ It has neither the gamopetalous corolla nor the staminal scales of Nematolepis. The woolly hairs round the ovary are very deciduous and had already fallen from the fully open flower I examined in Hb. Brown.²

Pachynema macrum is my P. junceum³

Comesperma oxythecum is C. lanceolatum R Br.

Ionidium ambigium does not appear to me to differ from I. suffruticosum

Zygophyllum Howittii⁴ is I think Z. fruticulosum, var. bilobum (Z. aurantiacum Lindl.) The capsules of Z. fruticulosum are I find sometimes 3-winged instead of 4-winged in other specimens although I had not observed it before — and I find I have omitted to state what A. de Jussieu had already pointed out that the capsule is frequently 1-seeded by abortion as in Z. Howittii.

Ryssopterys Benthais I have no doubt R. timorensis to which I had already referred it and of which the colour of the flower is unknown but in the closely allied R. chrysantha it is golden yellow. Our Timor specimens are not quite glabrous and Cunningham's intermediate in that respect between the timor ones and yours.

The single Malvaceous flower is evidently an Abutilon near A. tubulosum but cannot of course be published without more complete specimens.

With regard to the supplemental Thalamiflorae I will name and take notes of them for the first supplement I publish which I think of doing with the 2d vol. — An Addenda et Corrigenda to the 1st vol would not be worth publishing with it, for it would not obviate the need of one with the 2d vol for the first working with the 1st vol is sure to lead to the detection of errors which it would be good to correct by the first opportunity.

I am glad you have mentioned Mr Nernst in your letter. We all at first read the name on your labels Vernet and unfortunately it is so printed two or three times, and although in subsequent sheets I corrected it to Nernst I never till now felt confident that this was right

The whole of the volume including Preface etc. is in the printer's hands and almost all in type — the only thing which will take rather longer printing is the Index — which however I keep written up as the proofs come from the printers so that by next mail you will have the volume nearly if not quite complete.

Mr Black⁵ sends you 8 copies of our Genera⁶ in the hopes that you will be able to dispose of them for him — and has sent the account with the copies — with the discount deducted.

I have omitted for the present your Eriostemon? [egmosus]⁷ from Leichhardts collection. It is certainly no Eriostemon but I cannot tell what it is — and unless specimens are sufficient to fix tolerably clearly their probable genus, it is only confusing science to publish them.

A propos of Ryssopteris⁸ — I must beg of you not to name species after me. I have so often expressed my opinion that unless in very exceptional cases species ought to be named after no other person than those who collected or discovered them and it would be awkward to have plants named after me in a work I am inditing. I always try to suppress all Benthamisms I can and am only sorry I could not do so with the Olax so named by Miquel.

Yours ever sincerely

George Bentham

Dr F. Mueller

Abutilon tubulosum

Comesperma lanceolatum

Comesperma oxythecum

Droseraceæ

Eriostemon erosus

Ionidium ambigium

Ionidium suffruticosum

Leguminosae

Nematolepis Euphemiae

Olax

Pachynema junceum

Pachynema macrum

Phebalium Baxteri

Ryssopteris

Ryssopterys Benthami

Ryssopterys chrysantha

Ryssopterys timorensis

Thalamiflorae

Zygophyllum aurantiacum

Zygophyllum fruticulosum, var. bilobum

Zygophyllum Howittii