26/5/66
The dreadful season of rainlessness, dear Mr Bentham, made for the time any botanical work an impossibility. The drought at last is broken now & though severe winter work still presses on me & both the intercolonial Exhibition1 & the French Exhibition2 will require my attention as Commissioner I hope to absolve the gnaphaloideae in a few months; all other Compositae are sent to you & are certain to keep you engaged for many months. I shall send the Gnaphaloideae in two instalments, so that no delay to you arises. I have never fancied multiplicity of genera; so I do not think Miquels & Seemanns Aralian genera can be all adopted.3 Panax is a very good genus as regarded before & how Panax papyrifer is to be excluded I cannot well see, for occasionally 5-petaled flowers occur.
The boxes with Eucalypti reached me safely. I rejoyce seeing how much care you bestowed on the genus. I shall look forward to the printing of the Myrtaceae &c with great pleasure
Your regardful
Ferd Mueller
What is the leguminous, the "Codeso" of Teneriffe? I see such genus not mentioned in your generic work.4 If it is tenable it requires alteration of name (perhaps Codonolobium) in consequence of Cunninghams genus5 of Phytolacceae.
Codonocarpus frankenioides
Codonolobium
Compositae
Eucalyptus
Gnaphaloideae
Myrtaceae
Panax papyrifer
Intercolonial Exhibition of Australasia, Melbourne, 1866-7.
Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1867.
Seemann’s 'Revision of the Natural Order Hederaceae' was originally published in parts in each of the first six volumes of the Journal of botany, British and Foreign, (1864-8) which he edited, and collected as Seemann (1868); Miquel's Araliaceae were published in a number of places, and were upheld by Seemann.
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83).
Endlicher (1837a) considered that Cunningham's MS genus Codonocarpus was distinct from W. Hooker's Gyrostemon, and provided a description in a footnote.
Please cite as “FVM-66-05-26b,” 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