Newyearseve
1866-67.
I send a few lines as a late salutation to the new year. The last mail has taken to you lots of Orchid tubers & this one brings the rest. Why cannot these lovely plants be brought regularly under cultivation. How interesting a collection of terrestrial Orchids would be if comprising species from all parts of the globe.
Anthisth[i]ria australis is, as you surmised, A. ciliata & to it also belongs A. glauca of the Mediterranean! The main character has been overlooked namely its 3 valvate or rather its 3 sepalate flowers. A avenacea has 4 sepals.
I mistook a wrong grass for the Panicum alluded to by Colonel Munro & described now his grass as P. Munroi.2 Still it seems to me foreign to the genus. I had just to examine some grasses for the Exhibition3 & thus plunged for a day or two into Gramineae & thus also it often happens, that my varied official calls draw my attention at a sudden moment to plants on which I otherwise should not work at the time. You will probably find it just so at Kew, unless there you can allot such work to subordinates
Mr Bentham cuts the genera down unmercifully. I fear our great phytographer goes too far. Pray tell him, that poor Mr Tozer, who discovered the Pithecolobium & met at the occasion with such severe accident by the fall of his horse is dead.4 I had just a touching letter from his widow.5 — Should not arrangements be made for the Cryptogamic workers on the flora Austr. at once? It is true poor Harveys Algae may be simply translated as no important additions have been obtained But Musci, Lichenastra, Lichens & Fungi require special new work, and this much is certain, such a cryptogamic volume could not be finished so speedily as a phanerogamic one. To the genus Helmholtzia I must direct your special attention.6
Algae
Anthisthiria australis
Anthisthiria avenacea
Anthisthiria ciliata
Anthisthiria glauca
Fungi
Gramineae
Helmholtzia
Lichen
Lichenastra
Musci
Panicum Munroi
Pithecolobium
Please cite as “FVM-66-12-31a,” 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 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/66-12-31a