To Joseph Hooker   28 March 1870

28/3/70

 

Is this the true Gonolobus viridiflorus, dear Dr Hooker? — I raised it from seeds, brought by the Viscountess Canterbury1 from Trinidad, where however the plant may possibly not be indigenous. I have no good specimen of the typical G. viridiflorus to compare; the plates are not good. Should against my expectations the plant prove new, then her Ladyships name might be given to it.2

Your regardful

Ferd von Mueller

 

Your Cladium tetraquetrum is certainly Labillardière Lepidosperma tetragonum. I had many years ago transferred the plant to Cladium as you will see in the manuscripts at Kew3

Would there be any chance to obtain from West India any seeds of Aeschynomene viscidula & A. sensitiva, through some kind friend.

 

Aeschynomene sensitiva

Aeschynomene viscidula

Cladium tetraquetrum

Gonolobus viridiflorus

Lepidosperma tetragonum

 
 
1
Wife of J. H. Manners-Sutton, who was Governor of Trinidad before taking up his post of Governor of Victoria in August 1866 and who succeded to the title of Viscount Canterbury in 1869.
2
MS annotation by D. Oliver: ' Gonolobus nostratus RBr not G. viridiflorus'.
3
No publication by M in which he makes this combination has been found. It is probable that it was in the MS sent to Kew and not published by the time W. Hooker closed Hooker's journal of botany and Kew Garden miscellany in December 1857. The MSS have not been found.

Please cite as “FVM-70-03-28a,” 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 24 March 2023, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/70-03-28a