To George Bentham   14 July 1868

Bot. Gard. Melbourne

14/7/68

 

It is quite a relief to my mind, dear Mr Bentham, to learn by the telegrams of this mail, that all the Boxes bringing material for volume IV have safely arrived, at least that the ships reached their destination. Since their transmission a box has been sent N. 41 pr Essex on the 18 May mainly filled with Euphorbiaceae; N. 42 pr Lincolnshire on the 16 June with Urticeae, Laurineae &c; N. 43 & N. 44 pr. Anglesey on the 7 July with Casuarinae, Coniferae, Cycadeae &c. So you see I do my best to keep ahead of you with my preliminary work. I look forward with very deep interest to the information, which you have consolidated in the 4th volume, a glorious advance to our knowledge, which for all times to come will throw credit on yourself. I did not expect that among my W.A. Monopetaleae you would find other novelties than the few I described; but I think you will have found the notes on color, habit, locality &c of use; and it would besides but be just to quote the plants, the voyage and land journey having involved great expense.

I sent the Casuarinae, Cycadeae &c in advance of the Proteaceae, thinking they might perhaps yet be utilized for D.C. volume, at least in the supplemental pages, which are usually published.1 I am far on with the Salsolaceae, Santalaceae and the Amarantaceae, and then of Dicotyledonous plants only Thymeleae and Proteaceae require to be transmitted, the preexamination of which will not involve much trouble, the characters of these plants being so apparent. I shall however probably unite Isopogon with Petrophila.

It would be a pity, if you cannot get the Monopetaleae all in one volume. It is such a natural series and it would be a pity to sever any portion from it.

When you come to vol. V you will regret, that the very dissimilar orders of Monochlamydeae were not distributed among Thalamifl. and Calyciflorae. Then we would get a real good natural system.

In Celastrineae I have 3 additions a new Leucocarpon (a genus which must be reestablished as […]2 is abolished) a new Caryospermum and Salacia prinoides.3

You alluded to some error in the initials of locality given by Nees in his edition of RBr. prodromus. These errors I can [c]he[ck] in future, having obtained through Dr Sonders extreme kindness Sprengels private copy of RBrowns original edition.4

Trusting the summer journey (of which I envey you much,) has as usual invigorated your health and gladdened your spirit5

I remain your very regardful

Ferd. von Mueller

 

Amarantaceae

Calyciflorae

Caryospermum

Casuarinae

Celastrineae

Coniferae

Cycadeae

Euphorbiaceae

Isopogon

Laurineae

Leucocarpon

Monochlamydeae

Monopetaleae

Petrophila

Proteaceae

Salacia prinoides

Salsolaceae

Santalaceae

Thalamiflorae

Thymeleae

Urticeae

 
1
There are references to M material in entries in Candolle’s Prodromus for both Casuarinea (Miquel [1868]) and Cycadaceae (A. L. P P. de Candolle [1868]). The addenda and corrigenda to the volume contain one citation to M's Fragmenta.
2
In context the name should be 'Richard's' (see n. 3), but the MS text is unclear and bears little resemblance to it.
3
Richard's Leucocarpon was listed by Endlicher (1836-40), p. 918, and by Bentham & Hooker (1862- 83), vol. 1, part 1, p. 366 as a synonym of Meisner's Denhamia. In B68.12.01, p. 203, as well as describing L. celastroides, M transferred some of the species he had previously reported, in B59.13.01, pp. 29-30, as Denhamia to Leucocarpon without giving reasons for a generic distinction (L. oleaster and L. pittosporoide [error for L. pittosporoides?]). In B59.13.01, p. 30, M wrote 'to Mr. Black, the intelligent keeper of the Hookerian Herbarium, I am indebted for identifying … species of this genus with Leucocarpon, an information which, without reference to authenticated specimens, hardly could have been obtained, since Richard described the fruit as subcarnose'. (On the previous page M had described the fruit as a bony capsule rather than being somewhat fleshy, and treated Leucocarpon as a synonym of Denhamia.) In his Census (B89.13.12), p. 40, M cited as his authority B82.02.04, where (p. 199) he lists the genus as Leucocarpum, attributed to Richard with Leucocarpon and Denhamia as synonyms.
4
The volume is in the library of RBG Melbourne.
5
In the summer of 1867 Bentham and his wife made visits to a number of places in England between 16 July to 2 September, including a visit to Norwich for the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Jackson [1906], p. 211).

Please cite as “FVM-68-07-14a,” 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/68-07-14a