To George Bentham   28 July 1866

28/7/66

A variety of circumstances, which it is but right I should explain to you, dear Mr Bentham, delayed the shipment of the rest of the Compositae til for the sailing of the Yorkshire, which clipper ship left our port on the 21. — I was desirous to separate the Compositae from Drummonds ill preserved & entirely unsorted collection, because I have reason to think, that no other museum now but mine has some of the plants collected during his last excursions.¹ Then again I was month after month eager to revise the gnaphaloid group myself, because these lovely immarcescent plants have been since my early childhood objects of my fond contemplation. When but a very week little child, not being able to walk before my fifth year, I remember in my dear parents room suspended wreaths of Helichrysum Stoechas & H. bracteatum in their imperishable beauty, called by them "strofblumen"² — and these little ornaments drew a mind of poetical tendency to watch all through my boyhood for other flowers as well in the garden & field & made me capable to go independently to work without a teacher to commence the botanical survey of the S.W. part of Schleswig in my 15 year. I thought to plunge then of late into a general examination of all gnaphaloids, having Ecklon & Zeyhers & [Bergs] & many other plants, and the curious forms from NZ also almost completely. I commenced to work on all. I found that poor Harveys limitation of the South African genera admits of reconsideration & I did something towards a new systematic disposition of all the species of the globe. Reluctantly I was obliged to abandon the task for want of leisure and, I fairly admit, at times for want of spirit. Annoyances of grave kind in my very dependent position in this department, disappointment in observing the frailness of human nature where least expected,³ dispirited me much. My mental working power and my bodily power had all been overtaxed for several years in this large department, which though so young & though almost solely my own creation, ranks now clearly as the second to Kew under the British Crown. The work indeed was in 1866 heavier than in any other year, partly because 20000 young trees planted out over 400 acres of ground had to be kept alife at a season of unprecedented drought, a season which laid for the first time to white mens knowledge (and the natives are dead) dry my large garden lake and rendered necessary to sieze on the rare opportunity to throw up by excavations broad cross-dams, causeways & islands & reclaiming the Melaleuca swamp[s], all of which requiring my daily personal attention as responsible Director & all requiring to be performed without an extra-vote! Then again as Commissioner for two exhibitions, both intercolonial & french I had extra work pressed on my attention. & now suddenly the unexpected death of M'Intyre,⁴ who died of typhoid fever, calls me as Aide de Camp, to the Ladies Court of the Leichhardt search to unexpected extra-ertions.⁵ If I have clung with some tenacity to absolving the work on Gnaphaloideae myself, I had also to see, that the main results of my toilsome labors, carried on here in a scientific exil under great disadvantage and until lately under absense of facilities of any kind, were not lost to me! The financial, domestic & social & even hygienic sacrifices during these last 19 years in Australia have been so great, that you must pardon me if I have been selfish and weak enough to wish to safe out of the wreck of my discoveries as much as I can. My only reward can now (after I passed the zenith of my life) only consist in stamping my name on every square mile of this continent, where the vegetation should speak of me, as that of the whole globe bears testimony everywhere of the genius of George Bentham. — You can afford to be generous.

I am indulging in the hope, that my consignment now sent, will arrive in the beginning of October & thus leave you three months to finish the Composites so that your 3 vol may appear, as it ought, in 1866.⁶ Probably I shall give publicity of some of my notes on gnaphaloides in the 38 fragment, with which the 5 vol will probably be closed.⁷ But I shall likely retain many until I have learn your confirmatory views or otherwise on the limits of the genera I adopted, and I feel persuaded before you have dipped into an universal scrutiny of all the species of the huge order of Compositae for your work on the genera you could not safely circumscribe those for the Australian flora. Indeed until your last 2 letters arrived⁸ I did not for a moment believe the Australian work would forerun the genera,⁹ not merely because it is infinitely more important that your sterling knowledge of all the universal Vegetation should be crowned with the results you lay down in the new generic code, than be half be thrown away on the flora of Australia, but also I cannot see how a partial examination of representatives of plants from one part of the globe only can lead to the adoption of safe generic outlines.

I find all the gnaphaloid genera excessively arbitrary; more so than might be expected though we must all be conscious that no natural genera exist. To avoid extremes, I discarded the views of J. Hooker (flor. of N. Zeal¹⁰) & of Schultz Bipontinus,¹¹ according to which Helichrysum &c have to be reunited with Gnaphalium. The latter genus with its herbaceous plants can be recognized by its pluriseriate anandrous flowers; an occasional transitory exception infringes not sufficiently the rule Helichrysum I widen thus far (as regards Australian plants irrespective of those of South Africa, to which I may once specially refer) as to admit of the amalgamation of Ozothamnus!, Chrysocephalum!, Acroclinium!, Anisolepis, —. To these subgenera must be added Lawrencella in which the multiseriate pappus cannot be of more value than in Senecio. It makes a very good section but no more and thus my Helichrysum Davenportii¹² includes Lawrencella The character derived from the anthers is not good. Helichrysum Baxteri breaks entirely down the marks of Acroclinium, leaving only one with solid pappus [t]ips like in a S. African genus. Whether Waitzia can be separated I am still doubtful. We have rostrate Heliptera! Helichrysum Sonderi (Ixiolaena tomentosa S. & M.)¹³ in Seemans journal 1866¹⁴ mediates the transit from Ixiolaena to Helichrysum. Still the genera may be retained. Helichrysum, though purely artificial, is so instanter recognized by the same note which separated Cirsium from Carduus, as to give us a very fair assemblage of plants for generic detachment, but it must absorbe Rhodanthe, the appendages of the anthers in many helichrysoids separating only in age, — also Pterochaeta, Hyalosperma (as indicated by A Gray),¹⁵ Xyridanthe, Gilberta.

Ozothamnus tephrodes Turcz is also a true Helichrysum.

Pteropogon is one of those artificial points on which several genera meet. It swallows up several species, referable to Helichrysum or Helipterum were it not for the many barren central flowers. I shall for the present maintain the genus, but as I stated 1852 in the Linnaea,¹⁶ it may fall by the advance of yet undiscovered new form of alliance. It may be made to include Acroclinium and I will further reflect on this point.

If Acroclinium is to be kept up its generic name must give way to Schlectendals Argyrophanes Schoenia chloropappa¹⁷ Turcz is Acroclinium. Schoenia must go either entirely into Pteropogon or partly into Helipterum.

As regards specific characters we must take warning from the teachings of Vittadinia and of Helichrysum bracteatum and Helipterum incanum.

From your letter arrived by this mail¹⁸ I gather that you maintain Brachycome. Recent dissections have led me to other conclusions, and if not further observations lead me to other views I shall bring all Brachycomes to Bellis. I find not all the receptaculi of Brachycome solid, though the cavity is not so expansive as in Bellis and will closely investigate the subject while these plants are coming now into bloom. Meanwhile in my Supplemental Compositae I have some months ago marked every Brachycome Bellis.

Probably I shall undertake two maps for a physiographic atlas of Australia¹⁹ and if this is carried out I can easily have 1000 extracopies struck up and present them for appending to your work also the geographical map. I have just brought up a report on the subject.²⁰ Will not the Congress do for Europe what you with my aid are doing for the Australian Continent.²¹ It is a sound view, that induced you to abandon the new genera of Araliaceae, which remind me a good deal of Bergs grouping of Myrtaceae.²²

Panax with Plinius and indeed all ancient writers was masculine generis.

In hurriedly packing up the Araliaceae I did not distinguish Panax mollis. It is a remarkable plant, shrubby 6-8' high, with purple prickly stem.

Ever your Ferd Mueller

I am delighted with your arrangement of the Eucalypti according to the anthers, though RBr. would have felt rather surprised that Eudesmia did not even rank as a section. I am now raising from seeds as many species as I can to watch the characters of the young seedlings, which indeed never varies & may well be drawn into diagnoses. So it is with many plants & some day I will offer a special memoir on the subject my position as Director of this large garden department affording me much facility for the purpose.²³ Meanwhile I get drawings made of all the seedlings as they spring up.²⁴ From adventitious branchlets no notes can be derived. I shall work now on Eucalyptus with renewed interest.

I have recently received a fine collection of Hong Kong plants from which I can furnish supplementary notes to your work.

Siemssenia I have reduced to Podolepis as P. Siemssenii.²⁵

Eucalyptus fasciculosa is a desert species. It belongs to the Leiophloiae & is probable distinct from the true Eucalyptus paniculata. Smith could not have had access to it.²⁶

I am looking forward with great interest to the other pages of proof. Melaleuca ericifolia is one of the most common plants of Victoria from the seacoast to the mountains. I am preparing now tar, acetic acid & spirits from it. Should Dampiers figures not be quoted & his plants at Oxford not be examined? Of Eucalyptus Behriana occurs a diagnosis in Tr. Vict. Inst. I, 34.²⁷ The Eucalypti must have given you an immensity of work & thought. Of Eucalyptus alpina a diagnosis is given, Fragm II, 68.²⁸ Eucalyptus diversicolor is the famous "Karri" which in Karri dale attains a hight of 400' Hence it is next to Wellingtonia probably the most colossal tree of the globe and infinitely more rapid a growth.

You will have to insert at the end of the volume the Connarus (vid. Fragm V, 105.)²⁹

Acroclinium

Anisolepis

Araliacea

Argyrophanes

Bellis

Brachycome

Carduus

Chrysocephalum

Cirsium

Compositae

Connarus

Eucalyptus alpina

Eucalyptus Behriana

Eucalyptus diversicolor

Eucalyptus fasciculosa

Eucalyptus paniculata

Eudesmia

Gilberta

Gnaphalium

Gnaphaloideae

Helichrysum Baxteri

Helichrysum bracteatum

Helichrysum Davenportii

Helichrysum incanum

Helichrysum Sonderi

Helichrysum Stoechas

Helipterum

Hyalosperma

Ixiolaena tomentosa

Lawrencella

Leiophloiae

Melaleuca ericifolia

Myrtaceae

Ozothamnus tephrodes

Panax mollis

Podolepis Siemssenii

Pterochaeta

Pteropogon

Rhodanthe

Schoenia chloropappa

Senecio

Siemssenia

Vittadinia

Waitzia

Wellingtonia

Xyridanthe