To George Bentham   23 June 1864

Melbourne bot. Garden

23./6/64

Dear Mr Bentham.

I am glad, that you caused already some 2 more boxes with Leguminosae more to be returned pr Sussex, for which I shall look out[.] For your proofsheets I am eagerly looking forward, as I do not like to resume my labors on the plants of Victoria, until I know your views. I should not have thought that we had 250 phyllodineous Acaciae, but I may not be acquainted with all the S.W. & N.W. species.

Would it not be well to identify on this occasion the Acacia of Dampier, figured in the work on his travels?1

As regards Glycyrrhiza I was evidently led astray by R Brown, for when before his appendix to Sturts travels appeared in 18482 I saw it for the first time on the Murray lagoons, I was struck with the resemblance of the plant to Glycyrrhiza echinata, but not having my University herbarium then with me, which arrived only some years later from Europe I could not compare the plants. To me as an Examiner in Therapeutics & Materia medica on our University, it is certainly not creditable, that I should have not recognized a true glycyrrhiza.3 From the enclosed memorandum you will perceive, that the Embryo of Hymenanthera is not correctly described in your genera plantarum,4 where you seemed to have adopted implicitly the character from Fitch's plate.5 I have also some error to point out in regard to Brucea Sumatrana. The petals of this & seemingly also of B. antidysenterica are not narrow &c.

RBr. Pentadynamis is nothing else but Crotalaria dried in a young fructifying state, when the legumen may appear to be flat. I should never have imagined that Zornia chaetophora could be reduced to any other species, from what I saw of it on the northern sandstone table land. Have you intermediate forms from other countries?

Some of the notes in the now transmitted two fascicles of the fragmenta may interest you.

With kindest regards

Yr

Ferd Mueller

 

Acacia

Brucea antidysenterica

Brucea Sumatrana

Glycyrrhiza

Glycyrrhiza echinata

Hymenanthera

Leguminosae

Pentadynamis

Zornia chaetophora

 
1
M is presumably referring to Dampier (1703), of which he had a copy. However, none of the species illustrated on the three plates of plants from New Holland (i.e. Australia) in this work have been identified as Acacia species; see George (1999). Bentham does not cite Dampier in his collection notes for these of for any other species of Acacia in Flora australiensis, vol. II, pp. 301-421.
2
Brown (1849).
3
The roots of various species of Glycyrrhiza , especially G. glabra, yield liquorice, used as a purge.
4
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83)
5
J. Hooker (1853-5), vol. 1, t. 7, Hymenanthera crassifolia; 'Fitch del & Lith.' The memorandum referred to has not been located.

Please cite as “FVM-64-06-23,” 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 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/64-06-23