From George Bentham   19 April 1866

25, WILTON PLACE, S.W.

London

April 19/66

My dear Sir

As usual your letter¹ arrived last month the day after the Australian mail was despatched. I am rather sorry to find that the remaining Compositae were not despatched but I trust they are now on their way. I have just got through the Olearias (Eurybias) and notwithstanding some interruptions brought on by the London season I find I get through these very much more rapidly than I could with the Myrtaceae, and if the remaining Compositae are not now on their way the appearance of the volume will be delayed — I send by this mail the first 7 sheets.

You talk of £5 as the probable expense of a map of Australia for the Flora but things of this kind are not done so cheap here — The little map in the Hong Kong Flora (which the publishers would not undertake) cost me £7.13.6 and one of Australia to be at all useful would cost at the very least £30 or £40

Among the specimens you sent by the last mail the "Pongamia" from Rockingham Bay is Dalbergia monosperma. "Gardenia Leefeana" is Randia densiflora (Cupia densiflora DC. Ixora Thozetiana F. Muell.) of which you had previously numerous flowering specimens. The Ophiorrhiza is not O. leptantha Gray which has a long slender corolla. Yours (of which you had good flowering specimens amongst your Psychotrias) is a small-flowered species nearest allied to the common O. Mungo² but I think sufficiently distinct[.]³ I have called it O. Australiana.

I enclose the duplicate of a bill of lading which I am told was sent you last mail — I have another box-full of specimens ready to return but do not like to send off any Compositae at least till I have done

Astereae and this box is not quite full without — I shall however probably send it off by the end of the month.

I get on so much quicker with Compositae from their not requiring boiling as the Myrtaceae do — cold water soon moistens them sufficiently — besides that I have already on previous occasions examined them so much more that the Myrtles. Without them I have only 930 species so that I trust I shall get them all into the volume without its running to more than the 700 pages due to the public, or if it takes a few more we can omit them from the next vol. — But as soon as this vol. is out I shall finish up the third part of Genera Plant.⁴ before I attack the 4th of Flora Australiensis. So that I shall not want anything beyond Compositae till after Xmas.

Yours ever sincerely

George Bentham

Dr F Mueller

Astereae

Compositae

Cupia densiflora

Dalbergia monosperma

Eurybias

Gardenia Leefeana

Ixora Thozetiana

Myrtaceae

Olearia

Ophiorrhiza Australiana

Ophiorrhiza leptantha

Ophiorrhiza Mungo

Pongamia

Psychotria

Randia densiflora