25, WILTON PLACE, S.W.
March 25/64
My Dear Sir
The box of Myrtaceae per Result and the 2 boxes of Eucalyptus per Sussex (or Suffolk) have arrived safe so that there are now no arrears. I have also to thank you for your letter of the 21st Jany1
I have had the remainder of your Papilionaceae and Caesalpinieae packed in 2 boxes which will go to the agent to be shipped tomorrow or Monday
The Cassias gave me a good deal of trouble. I quite agree with you that all the eremophila set run very much one into the other2 but so it is with all the Psilorhegmas. I believe there is an unbroken series of intermediates from the E. indica,3 C. glauca down to C. phyllodinea & C. circinnata4 — and yet the union of all the Psilorhegmas into one species would be only a retrograde not an advanced step in science or practical use. Your C. acclinis5 is precisely C. suffruticosa of the Archipelago which is admitted to be scarcely distinguishable from C. glauca. Dallachy's note that it is a climber must be a mistake.6 R. Brown who has a fine set of specimens expressly describes it as an erect shrub like all its allies.7 Some of his specimens pan into C. retusa, and some of these again into C. australis. C. australis runs into C. Chatelainiana and some of Drummonds where the glands are reduced quite connect C. Chatelainiana with C. eremicola8 — again C. eremicola through C. artemisiodes (which is the older name for this set) passes into C. Sturtii and C. desolata and some of those are not to be distiguished from C. oligophylla. It is here as in so many instances in other countries the more specimens we get the more we find dissimilar species united — such intermediates it is the fashion in Europe to set down as hybrids — which however I believe to be very rare amongst wild plants.
Your C. pumila is not the Indian one — this latter has the petals not exceeding the calyx and a remarkable peltate stigma. You will find it among Leichhardt's plants.
I have retained Brown's name for Petalostyles which is not preoccupied Grisebachs Gentianeous genus is Petasostylis with a very different derivation.
The Mimosa from Leichhardts Port Essington collection is probably not indigenous It is certainly the Mauritius M. latispinosa which is in many tropical botanic gardens and during the short time of the Port Essington settlement Armstrong9 planted and sowed several things in the garden there
I am now in the midst of Acacias I do not quite like the groups (not Sections) which I formerly proposed10 but am at a loss for better ones There are great differences in the flowers and pods as well as in foliage and habit but they are so variously combined that I am unable to form any good sections especially as there are still so many western and tropical ones of which the pod is unknown &, where known, species with an identical pod are quite dissimilar in other respects and species which can scarcely be distinguished without the fruit have pods very unlike
As to the so-called strophiole of Acacia it is to me very different from that of Bossiaea Kennedya Pultenaea etc — in the latter cases it is a fleshy appendage to the hilum which is quite distinct (in the ripe seed) from the funicle — in Acacia it is merely an expansion of the funicle — often the whole funicle and always continuous with it — in short a true arillus — and not always constant in shape even in the same pod — and in the genus affords every degree of thickening or expansion the funicle sometimes remains quite filiform — its modifications never given more than specific characters. — so also in Petalostyles and Labichea the swelling of the funicle is often at some distance from the hilum.
I was glad to find in your fine specimens of Barklya unexpanded seeds showing the real Papilionaceous estivation the upper petal outside which confirms its place amongst Sophoreae already indicated by the curved radicle — Papilionaceae have occasionally a straight embryo but I believe Cæsalpinieae have never a curved one — the estivation is a character to which the only exception I know is in one species of Leptolobium Vog.
The number of Papilionaceae & Caesalpinieae I have (now all written out for press) is about 650 (I believe 652) and there will be I suppose about 250 Mimoseae making about 900 altogether.
I have heard nothing yet of the £100 but as I am not printing yet there is plenty of time. You will not have to apply for the next this year as it will be late in next year before the 3d vol is ready for press. I hope in my next to announce to you that the present one is in the printer's hands
Yours very sincerely
George Bentham
Dr F. Mueller
Acacia
Barklya
Bossiaea
Cæsalpinieae
Cassia acclinis
Cassia artemisiodes
Cassia australis
Cassia Chatelainiana
Cassia circinnata
Cassia desolata
Cassia eremicola
Cassia glauca
Cassia indica
Cassia oligophylla
Cassia phyllodinea
Cassia pumila
Cassia retusa
Cassia Sturtii
Cassia suffruticosa
Kennedya
Labichea
Leptolobium
Mimosa latispinosa
Mimoseae
Papilionaceae
Petalostyles
Petasostylis
Psilorhegma
Pultenaea
Sophoreae
Letter not found.
Bentham is clearly commenting on M's views of the classification of Cassia; see M to G. Bentham, 11 August 1863 for M’s grouping all desert Cassia, i.e. the ‘eremophila set’. See also Bentham (1863-78), vol. 2, p. 287, comment under C. phyllodinea.
C. indica? Although there is no Cassia indica in Bentham’s treatment of Cassia in Flora Australiensis, in his later revision of the world-wide genus, Bentham (1871), he lists it as a synonym of C. sophora (p. 533). C. glauca is not indexed in Flora Australiensis but is mentioned there in the discussion of C. phyllodinea. (Bentham (1863-78), vol. 2, p. 287) and discussed more extensively in Bentham (1871), p. 555.
circinata in Bentham (1863-78), vol. 2, p. 286.
Described in B63.09.01, p. 13.
In B63.09.01, p. 13, M described the plant as 'Elata, subscandans' [tall, almost climbing], but did not cite a specimen from Dallachy. Dallachy’s note may have been mentioned in the missing letter, or have been associated with a specimen seen by Bentham.
No published assertion by Robert Brown (1773-1858) about this has been found.
No description of C. eremicola has been found. However, under C. Chatelainiana, Bentham (1863-78), vol. 2, p. 286 wrote ‘Very nearly allied on the one hand to C. australis, in which, however, the leaflets when linear are usually revolute, and on the other to C. eremicola, which has fewer leaflets without the subulate gland.’ This is evidently a slip by Bentham, as under C. eremophila he noted: ‘A very variable species, of which specimens occur occasionally with here and there an additional pair of leaflets, showing an approach towards C. artemisioides, and some of the western ones with the gland rather more prominent are at first sight like reduced forms of C. Chatelainiana’ (p. 288).
John Armstrong, d. 1847.
In his introduction to the genus Acacia Bentham wrote:
I have … on each of the three occasions when I have gone through the genus in detail with a large number of specimens before me, in vain sought for any better mode of distributing the species than in Series, founded chiefly upon foliage and inflorescence (Bentham (1863-78), vol. 2, p 301).
Bentham may have included the work on Acacia for Flora Australiensis as one of his examinations. If he meant earlier treatments, these are certainly Bentham (1842), probably Bentham (1853), and possibly B59.02.01, for which Bentham 'at Dr. Mueller's request, carefully compared his species with those nearly allied to them, and added any remarks which suggested themselves, at the end of his descriptions' (p. 114).
Please cite as “FVM-64-03-25b,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on