To George Bentham   25 April 1864

25/4/64.

My dear Bentham.

Your kind letter of 25/2/64 calls for an acknowledgement.¹ I am glad that you so rapidly push on the investigation of the Leguminosae, and feel sure we shall be indebted to you for a magnific essay of these plants, since no Botanist ever has so comprehensively & so extensively examined them like you. It will afford me also the opportunity of resuming early my labor on the flora of Victoria. I wished you would throw out of vol II² the small orders & insert all the Myrtaceae. This would give me my own set soon back again, so that I may at last finish vol II of flor. Vict. You will find the Myrtaceae so extensively preexamined, that it will be comparatively an easy task to master them for your work. Just these two orders would form a fair extent of material³ for vol. II & then the other small orders with Compositae would occupy the 3. vol and bring the orders forward as far as Epacrideae, which ought to be included in Monopetalae or rather Corolliflorae.

Will you kindly let me know whether you want Euphorbiaceae for vol. III. and also any supplem. to vol. I. I have some notes further for the purpose, but it would be a waste of time copying them should they not be wanted.

When will Dr Hookers Manual on N Z pl. be completed?⁴ I have recently placed my rather extensive collection of N Z plants in order & have a good many not mentioned in the Flora,⁵ e.g. Dicksonia dubia, Cystopteris fragilis, Asplen⁶ Trichoman[e]s, several Compositae &c. Will you kindly direct Dr Hookers attention also to the fact, that several NZ mosses are published in the Linnaea of 1853 from my collections.⁷

I have as yet no word about several boxes (successively numbered) & sent to you & feel considerable uneasiness on the subject. Could not one of your assistants keep a regular record of the arrivals? If a consignment is missing it may be traced out soon afterwards, but never after a time in London. Of this I have some sad evidence in some of my collections sent via London to the continent, or rather to London for being despatched to the continent.⁸

I differ from you in regard to the limitation of Eugenia. In my opinion it is not sufficient reason to disperse the species of a large & natural genus into a number of artificial ones, because the number of the species is so copious.⁹ If this was a sufficient reason, such genera as Solanum, Senecio, Panicum, Erica &c ought unavoidably be disrupted, not to the benefit of our science. All the distinctions apparent (& of course fluctuant) in Acmene,¹⁰ Jambosa, Syzigium are of sectional but not of generic value. Moreover I disapprove of the generic & specific limitations of the Myrtaceae, as expound by Berg in Mart flor Brasiliana,¹¹ and have told so Martius.¹² I have a number of these plants here in my Museum out of the Petersburg collection & feel confident they are not safely defined. [Indeed] the Myrtaceae of the fl. Brasiliana bear not a favorable comparison with the Leguminosae.¹³

Could you kindly arrange that I receive a copy of Dr Hookers manual as soon as out?

In putting my huge collection of Epacrideae into final order I perceive by new forms the very trifling differences of some of the genera [st]ill further impaired. It is much to be regretted that RBr.¹⁴ did not as he was half inclined to do keep up that fine large & natural genus Styphelia, as I shall probably do in the plants of Victoria.¹⁵

The enclosed carte de visite is for Prof. Harvey.

With cordiality

Yr

Ferd Mueller

In the Bot Zeitung for 1851 Regel described a South Austr Pultenaea as an Aotus Würthii. I am not certain which.¹⁶

Portulaca oleracea has since the last year become as frequent in the streets of Melbourne as I saw it in the city of Rio de Janeiro¹⁷

Acmene

Aotus Würthii

Asplenium

Compositae

Corolliflorae

Cystopteris fragilis

Dicksonia dubia

Epacrideae

Erica

Eugenia

Euphorbiaceae

Jambosa

Leguminosae

Monopetalae

Myrtaceae

Panicum

Portulaca oleracea

Pultenaea

Senecio

Solanum

Styphelia

Syzigium

Trichomanes