To George Bentham¹    25 August 1864

25./8./64.

Dear Mr Bentham.

The mailday has again arrived and your letter of 24. June is before me awaiting an answer.

I have to acknowledge your kind transmission of the first proof-sheets of vol. II, and beg to offer a few observations on that portion of the volume.² Pentadynamis, I feel perfectly convinced, is only a Crotalaria (C. eremaea vide report)³ with the unripe fruit compressed by drying. That R. Br. did not see the ripe fruit is apparent from his description.

Hardenbergia has in my opinion no claim on generic distinction (as stated in the fragmenta)⁴ nor can I see the limits between Cajanus & Atylosia, which I vainly endeavoured to trace when writing the essay on the plants of the Burdekin Expedition.⁵ Albizzia seems to me also a mere subgenus of Acacia. The name Port Sinclair has to give way to that of Port Denison. I have the greatest possible doubt of Oxylobium ellipticum occurring in West Australia the most western locality otherwise known being Gipps Land. Mount Butler as a locality for O. alpestre should be Mount Buller. Oxylobium trilobatum occurs on that part of the Genoa River belonging to the Victorian territory. From this plant O. staurophyllum is certainly as a species not distinct. I purposely did not adopt the name nudiflorum for Sphaerolobium foliosum, because the latter is so much more expressive; more over the bracts & bracteoles are in all probablity present, though very fugacious

I could also not help regretting the alteration of the specific name of Mirbelia aphylla.⁶ Daviesia cordifolia,⁷ to the generality of forms of which the name D. buxifolia is inapplicable, I have at last clearly traced into D. latifolia. Baxter's specimen must have been obtained at Wilson's promontory, a locality visited by that traveller, when he for instance found Persoonia Caleyi. Daviesia latifolia occurs in no part of South Australia, where I was 5 years travelling, and is therefore not likely to reappear in W. Australia, it being one of the prominent features of that complex of plants which might be called Tasmanian vegetation, altho' not restricted to that island, but fully developed in Australia felix on the opposite coast. If I am spared I hope to write some day a geography of of⁸ Australian vegetation & intend then to dwell fully on this subject. Daviesia horrida was named by Preiss. Aotus villosa is an other Tasmanian form & a wide distance intervenes between it and the much taller Aotus gracillima.

The enclosed note⁹ from my assistants, who unpacked one of the unfortunate cases sent by the Sussex will show you how it arrived. It is a terrible loss as even with drying & and oiling the rotten specimens they could not all be saved. I fear the Kew Agent does not regard these sendings in any other light but that of ordinary merchandise, for my old esteemed friend Capt Ridgers of the Sussex spontaneously assured me he would gladly have taken the boxes in his own private cabin had he known they contained anything I much valued. The soldering was also again very unsatisfactor[e]ly done and I hope you will not think me [un]modest if I impress on the party, who will be instructed with the future packing of the cases, that not always the same cases and even the same lids should be used, if they are no longer serviceable. I ver[e]ly believe, that a proper soldering of the cases would have avoided the disaster. As it is, it is of course excessively disheartening. The freight was not defrayed, but I paid it, as I offered to do in first instance, altho' this offer was not accepted.

As I may possibly be away for a very long time from here before any reply to this letter can reach me, I will only now assure you, that arrangements shall be made prior to my departure of a sufficiency of plants being placed in perfect order for your use so as to enable you to proceed with your work uninterruptedly for more than two years. The great order of Composites, which will absorbe at least a year of your labor, is indeed well prepared & so many others. I leave my own personal or rather scientific interest[s] confidently with you, feeling convinced that you will always with your usual generosity act towards me, & will be conscious, that in accumulating what I did in observations & collections for the flora of this country, I have spent the better years of a toilsome life, have undergone no usual hardships & sacrificed almost a fortune & certainly many other brilliant prospects of life. I have to you with cheerfulness given up my means for a work, which only once can be written, altho' I could have not been induced to do so towards any other botanist. I shall continue as I have commenced true to my words in a manly honorable spirit altho' you will feel with me that a sacrifice can not be a trifling one which annihilated one of my great objects of ambition & destroyed my plan of life.

Wishing that providence may grant you strenght both bodily & mentally to finish what you so labouriously begun and that you may add thus to the laurels, with which science so copiously has adorned your brow, I remain your very devoted

Ferd. Mueller

Geissois rubifolia I examined carefully. It must remain with that genus, if that at all stands; the winged seeds appear to be important in all species. Akan[i]a is certainly only a subgenus of Weinmannia.

I fear Dr Hooker will not approve of my dealing with some of the New Zealand plants, as my views on their specific limitation are so widely different from his.

However I can truely say, that I endeavoured to work conscientiously & so I hope my views will be respected. For it is after all only that ages after us will judge who is right or wrong when the true species in their perfect range of variability will be more fully known. In the preface to the work on the Chatham vegetation, I shall return more fully to this subject.¹⁰ Most likely Dr Hooker has simultaneously arrived in many instances at the same conclusions with myself.

¹¹Elaeagnus latifolia, Rottlera paniculata & Osbeckia Chinensis I have now from Rockingham Bay.

The name Kennedya macrophylla adopted for my K. lateritia is not merely to be suppressed because it wants priority but because it is preoccupied for Hardenbergia Comptoniana.The same objection is to be taken to the new Pultenaea obcordata. Heritiera litoralis, which I received recently in fruit from Rockingham Bay ripens at least occasionally 2 seeds in each carpel. I believe therefore thar R Br's remark of its ovules being only solitary in the carpels¹² is to be regarded as exceptional & that Endlicher is quite right when he says that the ovaries have from 2-4 ovules.¹³

The needful alteration should therefore be made in the genera plantarum.

Is Wagatea (Dalzell) really distinct from Erythrophloe[u]m

Acacia

Albizzia

Aotus gracillima

Aotus villosa

Atylosia

Cajanus

Crotalaria eremaea

Daviesia buxifolia

Daviesia cordifolia

Daviesia horrida

Daviesia latifolia

Elaeagnus latifolia

Erythrophloeum

Hardenbergia

Hardenbergia Comptoniana

Heritiera litoralis

Kennedya lateritia

Kennedya macrophylla

Mirbelia aphylla

Osbeckia Chinensis

Oxylobium alpestre

Oxylobium ellipticum

Oxylobium staurophyllum

Oxylobium trilobatum

Pentadynamis

Persoonia Caleyi

Pultenaea obcordata

Rottlera paniculata

Sphaerolobium foliosum

Sphaerolobium nudiflorum

Wagatea