From George Bentham   19 December 1866

25, WILTON PLACE, S.W.

London

Decr 19/66

My dear Sir

I send you by the bookpost this mail the remaining sheets of my 3d vol.¹ except the last of the index which is not yet printed off — but the whole volume will be out next week and the publisher has instructions to send the 30 copies for your Government in the usual way. I hope you will not be dissatisfied with the volume — it has cost me twice the labour of either of the others — having been close at it for two years — although the number of species is only about 1430. I know very well that there will be much to correct and improve and I may have been mistaken in many of my views but I have done my best and shall continue to do so as long as I have health and strength to work. I now consider that having got over the Compositae half the work is done and the whole may be comprised in six volumes — I have not yet reckoned up the estimates of numbers for the next families but I presume that the fourth vol. will take in the majority if not the whole of the Monopetalae or perhaps even more, the Epacrideae being I suppose the only family amongst them numerous in Australia.

I have despatched the whole of your Compositae in two cases as per bill of lading which you will receive direct and of which I hope to be able to enclose a copy in this letter I trust they will all safely arrive I have now no plants of yours and shall be anxious for the next consignment early in the new year. I am now at the Umbelliferae for Genera Plantarum² of which we are about to put the 3d part into the printer's hands Of the actual work (beyond a share in general revisions which I always take) but little more than Umbelliferae falls this time upon me but that Order has been so tortured and the characters are so trifling or vague that one is quite bewildered In connection with the Australian genera the only change that has as yet occurred is that it turns out that the carpological characters of Diplaspis are identical with those of Huanaca, the difference lying only in the leaves, undivided in the former, dissected with linear segments in the S. American Huanaca. We shall probably unite the two but wait till we have reviewed the whole Order for press.

I have handed over Mr Woolls' interesting communication on the introduced plants of the neighbourhood of Sydney to the Linnean Society where it will I believe be read at the meeting tomorrow.³ I wish you who are so thoroughly acquainted with the different types of vegetation in Australia would prepare a paper for our Transactions on the subject — with some account of the physical characteristics, the geographical extent and position, and the prevailing species in each of the principal regions of vegetation in Australia — without reference to political demarcations — so as to give us who have never seen the country an idea of its botanical aspects. This, especially if illustrated with an outline map on a small scale in which the botanical regions might be generally indicated, would be an important contribution to science and none could work it out so easily and so well as yourself.

I have to thank you for a short note by the last mail⁴ with a few observations which I have duly recorded

I had the pleasure of meeting at dinner yesterday (at Mr G. Macleay's) Sir William Denison and Sir Charles Nicholson who both spoke of you with great regard from Sir C. Nicholson I was very glad to learn all the particulars of Mr Thozet's active career.

Ever my dear Sir

Yours sincerely

George Bentham

Dr F. Mueller F.RS

Compositae

Diplaspis

Epacrideae

Huanaca

Monopetalae

Umbelliferae