From George Bentham   18 June 1866

25, WILTON PLACE, S.W.

June 18/66

My dear Sir

Since last mail I have received yours of the 24th March¹ — In answer to which² in the first place I enclose a memorandum from Weddell³ — then as to your queries as to the specimens sent at the same time Eugenia tubulosa⁴ is E. leptantha Dysoxylon oppositifolium is certainly not my D. latifolium and I do not think it a Dysoxylon at all and probably not a Meliacea but from the fragments sent it is impossible to say what it is — Myrtus zizyphoides⁵ may be a Rhodamnia but without flowers or fruit it is impossible to say whether it belongs to Myrtaceae at all. The Xanthosia "to be returned" is X. candida. I shall send it back in the first box.

Owing to Whitsunday holidays with the printers I can only send you this mail 4 sheets or at most 5. I have corrected the press of three more carrying the letter press down nearly to the end of Araliaceae but I have not the clean copies in time — By next mail I hope to send all before Compositae all being in the printer's hands — I shall then be obliged to interrupt the printing till my return to town at Michaelmas[.]⁶ I have indeed done about 400 of the Compositae, and should have so far got through the genera as to have gone on printing but that I have not received your specimens which I shall now be waiting for. I trust they will be here by September otherwise I shall be obliged to do my best without them as I have engaged to get the volume ready early in autumn. In the mean time I shall take my holiday from the beginning of July, when I believe there will only remain Helichrysum and Senecio to do. As far as I have gone I have been able (pretty well to my own satisfaction although very likely not to that of others) very much to reduce the small genera. In Angiantheae especially I think the thirty odd genera chiefly monotypic go very well into five Myriocephalus Angianthus Gnephosis Calocephalus and Craspedia. In Cassinia Brown's species have several of them been wrongly identified and repeated in the Prodromus under Cunningham's names and two of Cunningham's in the Prodromus belong to Ozothamnus. On the whole I find Australian Compositae resolve themselves into groups better than I expected and not to present anything like the difficulties of Myrtaceae. I suppose Helichrysum (and Helipterum) will be the worst but I am finishing up the outlying genera before I take that in hand.

Ever your sincerely

George Bentham

Dr F. Mueller

Angiantheae

Angianthus

Araliaceae

Calocephalus

Cassinia

Compositae

Craspedia

Dysoxylon latifolium

Dysoxylon oppositifolium

Eugenia leptantha

Eugenia tubulosa

Gnephosis

Helichrysum

Helipterum

Meliacea

Myriocephalus

Myrtaceae

Myrtus zizyphoides

Ozothamnus

Rhodamnia

Senecio

Xanthosia candida