To George Bentham   26 March 1867

26/3/67

 

This month, dear Mr Bentham, I have not much to report. Unfortunately I got the rest of the Goodeniaceae not ready for the Yorkshire, as many departmental duties stormed on me, but I shall send them off by the Wellesley in a few days. Goodeniaceae comprise more than 20 fascicles! besides the 5 already forwarded with 3 of Lobeliaceae by the Great Britain.1 You will find them well arranged & I have elaborated most of the new species,2 so that you will be able to work with great facility. This year I shall be freer of work & thus will send you all the Monopetaleae in good order prepared. I have Leichhardts & Drummonds already inserted. Drummonds collection of Thalamiflorae has many numbers not quoted by you.3

You have one advantage, it is this, you receive all plants for elaboration together, while I had to work successively on bits of material, just as it accumulated from year to year.

Have you compared the leaves of Sterculia foetida in RBr herbarium from N Australia with those of Adansonia Gr[egorii?]4 Is it really the St. foetida?5

I have sent a collector to Arnhems land with Capt Cadell, as he will touch on parts of the coast seen neither by me nor by Cunningham.6 In the spring I trust to take a little recreation trip, having been now a prisoner to the house or rather office for more than 5 years without any intermission. I think of going then to King's Island to make a full phytographic survey of it & thus to connect still more our continental with the Tasmanian flora.

Some of RBr. Goodeniaceae I have not been able to recognize.

I am trying all I can to induce amateur collectors to come forward, that the range of the species may be fully determined. I have asked Dr Milligan to send a set of his plants to Kew & to Melbourne7 & hope you will give Dampier's plants some day a few hours inspection. They would form a good material for a small memoir in the L.S. transact.8

Ever your attached

Ferd Mueller.

 

I shall hasten the Epacrideae off. I trust you have [...]9 the Compositae for genera plantarum.10

 

Adansonia Gregorii

Compositae

Epacrideae

Goodeniaceae

Lobeliacceae

Monopetaleae

Sterculia foetida

Thalamiflorae

 
1
Great Britainsailed on 25 January 1867 with collections of several Goodeniaceae genera (RB MSS M44, M notebook recording despatch of plants for Bentham for Flora qustraliensis, Library, RBG Melbourne).
2
M typically published new species before sending the specimens to Bentham; see Lucas (2001).
3
M received James Drummond's herbarium of his WA collections from Drummond's son early in 1866; see M to G. Bentham, 5 February 1866. When using Drummond as authority for distribution data in Flora australiensis, Bentham quoted Drummond's specimen numbers, e.g., 'Drummond 4th coll. n. 158, 5th coll. n. 96', Bentham (1863-78), vol. 2, p. 192, under Psoralea eriantha.
4
editorial addition — Text obscured by binding.
5
Bentham (1863-78), vol. 1, pp. 226-7, admitted Sterculia foetida as an Australian species 'on Brown's authority' without having seen Brown's specimens, and described the species from Indian specimens.
6
As part of a plan to provide land for settlement in NT, the SA government sent a number of survey parties to the north coast. Many had difficulties or were only partly effective, including Captain Cadell who was sent with a party of seven in 1867. See Threadgill (1922), ch. IV and pp. 105 ff. for Cadell. The collector was Benjamin John Gulliver (not Thomas A. Gulliver as stated by Desmond [1994]).
7
Milligan, in response to a letter received from M, offered herbarium specimens collected in Tasmania and the Bass Straight islands to Kew, and asked Hooker for suggestions of other museums where the material would be of use and well cared for. Milligan later asked to retrieve, for redeposit at the Royal Society of Tas., some of the Tas. specimens he had left at Kew in 1868, as well as providing a case of specimens for Hooker to give to Asa Gray during Gray's visit to Kew from September 1868 (J. Milligan to J. Hooker, 29 August 1867; 8 July 1868 (RBG Kew archives, Directors' letters vol 95, English letters 1840-1900, MED-MOO, letter nos. 128, 129).
8
No specific article by Bentham on Dampier's plants has been identified.
9
illegible — Four or five words obscured by binding
10
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83).

Please cite as “FVM-67-03-26a,” 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 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/67-03-26a