Melbourne bot. Garden
2[1]/9/68.
After all, dear Mr Bentham, I received the proofsheets you so kindly sent, by last mail.1 They were accidentally first sent to Sydney & came after the last mail had departed. Only hurriedly I have looked over their pages and thus the notes thereon now offered, refer more particularly to the localities and the range of the species.2 As usual these writings of yours are a pure fountain of deep information Your views will doubtless generally be adopted, altho' I cannot help to express a regret, that the genera of the Epacrideae become more contracted. It is so difficult to bear in memory, what particular plant may belong to any of the smaller genera, that I should always give preference, as you have done so often yourself, to larger genera, which we can so well remember without reference to books. Indeed your demarcations of the genera Epacrideae are very fainth,3 especially if we compare them with those of Compositae, Myrtaceae and of some other orders, which you recasted. But to this objection it would be doubtless replied, that what is of value in one order could not be so in one standing far apart. But then I ask, should not the genera of Ericeae, of which the Epacrideae are certainly only a tribe, be also grouped on so trifling characters as the Epacrideae, in order that something like an equality of validity in the value of genera may be established, lying close to each other. If we now adopt as the primary mark of division the aestivation of the corolla, then Ponceletia cannot possibly fall together with Sprengelia, or the separation of Brachyl[om]a (to which you so well added certain Lyssanthes4) cannot be maintained. You will also find on reconsideration of the value of these genera that Dracophyllum is in its aestivation not identical with Sphenotoma, which latter is remarkably plicate in its aestivation. Possibly this character of aestivation is perhaps not the least, altho' I thought so. R. Brown applied it only to the drupaceaous genera, but omitted the character entirely in the capsular genera.
I see no help to avoid uniting Trichinium to Ptilotus, as already Poiret proposed.5 The genera do6 longer differ habitually, since so many middle forms have been found.7
Brachyloma
Compositae
Dracophyllum
Epacrideae
Lyssanthe
Myrtaceae
Ponceletia
Ptilotus
Sphenotoma
Sprengelia
Trichinium
Please cite as “FVM-68-09-21,” 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/68-09-21