From George Bentham   18 October 1865

25, WILTON PLACE, S.W.

Oct 18/65¹

My dear Sir

Since I wrote I have received yours of the 14th July for which I thank you and I have seen also the specimens you sent by the same mail addressed to Sir Wm Hooker.² The Myrtaceae shall be duly examined — the red leguminous climber (which you provisionally called Kennedya or Streptoica Hilliana) is a very interesting one being the Strongylodon ruber of Vogel³ which we had as yet only from the Pacific islands and from Ceylon — it remains to be verified how far the supposed species are identical or only nearly allied

I have had notice from the Crown Agents that the £100 will be paid after the 26th — Many thanks — I fear it will be long before I shall require the next instalment. I am now in the thick of Eucalyptus and get perfectly confused having to go over so many specimens over and over again before I can match them. The bark character you point out may be an excellent one but unfortunately in most cases unavailable for want of accurate notes from the collectors The anthers by which you distinguish two species otherwise alike is frequently a good character but often difficult to observe. The venation a very constant one in most cases but very difficult to describe — so that with the great mass of the common N. S. Wales ones I have great difficulty in sorting them into species — and hitherto so many of Smiths⁴ and other old ones have been wrongly identified Even Smith himself puzzled one — his piperita — he first described and figured in White's voyage⁵ a leafless bunch of fruits and two sprigs in leaf only then he thought these had been mismatched (which they were not) and referred the fruit to one he afterwards described (not in White's voyage) as capitellata.⁶ In that he was right but the leaves belong there too and not to the flowering specimen he afterwards described as piperita which is acervula (I know not yet what name it will retain) As far as I have gone I do not see my way to distinct groups — parallel distinct anther-cells generally go with regular numerous diverging veins, diverging confluent anther-cells with irregular very oblique veins — but there are notable examples — as in E. marginata Sm. which has the veins of the first & the anthers of the second, the shape of the calyptra goes for very little — the shape of the fruit is better I think if we get it properly developed and ripened — and in many specimens it looks as if it had dried so as to look ripe before it has attained its proper size & shape. In short after I have done the genus it will require your doing it over again in the country where you can ascertain many particulars that the specimens do not show and which your experience will give you — then I hope you will work up a detailed monograph of Eucalyptus⁷ — with their practical qualities and give figures of all or at least of the useful and prominent species — that would be a noble work which none but yourself can do properly — and my present labour will only be useful as identifying the old species.

The new part of our Genera Plantarum⁸ is or ought to be out but I have not got it yet so cannot send it you by this mail

Mr J. Smith the late Curator of Kew Garden has written⁹ to ask you to mention to you his fern herbarium about which he says he has sent you a printed circular.¹⁰ I do not know the collection myself but presume from his having so long and sedulously worked on the Order that it must be good and authentically named though like all collections made chiefly in gardens I should not think the labels and origin of the specimens always to be free from liability to mistake — but if used with caution I think it must be most valuable to any fern collector — there are no ferns in Lindley's herbarium — he never collected them — Mr Smith wished me to say also that he thinks his fern herbarium worth at least £150 and his general herbarium also mentioned in the circular £60

Yours very sincerely

George Bentham

Dr F. Mueller

Eucalyptus acervula

Eucalyptus capitellata

Eucalyptus marginata

Eucalyptus piperita

Kennedya Hilliana

Myrtaceae

Streptoica Hilliana

Strongylodon ruber