From George Bentham   13 May 1869

25. WILTON PLACE. S.W.

May 13 /69

My dear Sir

I have to thank you for yours of the 27th February received since the last mail. With regard to what you say of Cryptogamic plants they do not come at all within the scope of my work with the exception of Ferns. I have never worked much at the lower Cryptogams and if I did should most likely not at all coincide in the views as to species etc now entertained by the majority of Cryptogamists. The Cryptogamic Flora of so large a territory as Australia must form a separate work from the Flora of Phaenogamous plants and Ferns — each great branch indeed Mosses Lichens Fungi and Algae requires a separate author and there can be no community between their works and mine.1 However I dare not look forward to the completion even of my own work. I have now resumed it after having finished the Brasilian Caesalpinieae for Martius Flora2 the preparation of materials for which was one of the last of my late revered friends occupations. I am now at Verbenaceae and have just got through Verbenaceae proper. Quoya as you say is very closely allied to Chloanthes but quite inseparable from Pityrodia. I think we must restrict Chloanthes to the three Eastern and one western species with deccurrent leaves and put all the others in Pityrodia. I have had a great deal of trouble in examining the ovaries of all the species of these and the allied Dicrastyles but have finally satisfied myself that all have the structure of the tribe of Viticeae. Ovules laterally attached and generally above the middle and consequently rather pendulous than erect but amphitropous with an inferior micropyle and the embryo with an inferior radicle.

I see nothing to invalidate the old tribes of Verbeneae and Viticeae Bocquillons proposed division into regular and irregular corollas 1-celled and 2-celled ovaries is quite impracticable as well as unnatural. He takes his generic characters from the examination often incomplete of single species.3 There is great similarity in the structure of the Verbenaceae of each tribe and genera must sometimes be characterised as much by vegetative as by carpological characters4

Dr Hooker is gone to Petersburgh for the Horticultural and Botanical Congress there.5 I shall go abroad next month but before I go I shall return to you at least one box of specimens with some parcels for you they have at Kew

Ever yours very truly

George Bentham

 

Dr Ferd v Mueller

 

Mr Verdon has sent me the £100 for the fifth volume6 — Of course if I should not compleat it the money will be returned

 

Caesalpinieae

Chloanthes

Dicrastyles

Pityrodia

Quoya

Verbenaceae

Verbeneae

Viticeae

1
See also J,in which he advises M to establish a group of workers to do portions of the Australian cryptogams, but cautions him as to the inordinate amount of work he would be taking on.
2
 (1870a).
3
Bocquillon (1861-3).
4
The discussion in this letter is partly in response to M's treatment of Verbenaceae in B68.03.04, pp. 151-8.
5
The International Horticultural Exhibition at St Petersburg opened on 16 May 1869. For Hooker’s account of the visit, see J. Hooker to C. Darwin, 6 June 1869 (Burkhardt et al. [2009], pp. 259-62).
6
Victoria's contribution to the cost of Bentham (1863-78), vol. 5.

Please cite as “FVM-69-05-13,” 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 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/69-05-13