25, WILTON PLACE. S.W.
Decr 19/67
My dear Sir
I am very glad to hear of your trip to King George's Sound I hope you will have derived enjoyment as well as health from it.
I think I reported in my last the arrival of the Epacrideae etc pr Sussex and pr Great Britain and I have just attacked that Order.1 The Goodenovieae have taken me longer than I expected having had to analyse the ovarium of every species and often of many specimens. I find in Dampiera great and constant differences in the ovulum which make good sections combined with inflorescence. I fear however I must make a genus (Verreauxia) of D. Reinwardtii and D. Verreauxii which have not the characteristic flowers of Dampiera and yet will neither go into Scaevola nor Goodenia — De Vriese's genera are all as bad as the rest of his work.
Euthales must evidently go back to Velleia where Labillardière put it. The calyx tube is always quite free whilst the corolla is adnate In Goodenia barbata etc the calyx tube is exceedingly short but adnate and the lobes are adnate some way up. Euthales has also the inflorescence of Velleya2
I shall carefully go through your observations on Epacrideae. I do not like suppressing a genus so universally adopted as Leucopogon — and if it is retained as a section and proves at all a natural one I cannot but think it better to leave it as a genus — there is a great difference between making a genus and keeping up one already made. If it can be done with propriety I shall have the less scruple in doing so as I see you have provided for it by keeping up the section and by naming all your new species as Leucopogons as well as as3 Styphelias. The evil of the double synonymy is thus already created and whether a group be a section or genus is in many cases purely arbitrary — and in matter of doubt botanists at large would rather follow Brown than any of us.4
As I said before I hope to begin printing at the end of Feby so as to get the volume out before I leave town in summer. You would much oblige me by sending the remaining Monopetalae — I am having the Stylideae Campanulaceae & Goodenovieae packed up and shall send them off I hope in a few days They are in excellent condition The mould I mentioned as having appeared on one apparently rather fresh specimen only extended to 3 or 4 sheets and appears to have been got rid of by changing the paper5
Yours very sincerely
George Bentham
Dr F. Mueller FRS
Campanulaceae
Dampiera Reinwardtii
Dampiera Verreauxii
Epacrideae
Euthales
Goodenia barbata
Goodenovieae
Leucopogon
Monopetalae
Stylideae
Styphelias
Velleia
Velleya
Verreauxia
Please cite as “FVM-67-12-19,” 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