Melbourne botanic Garden
26/2/71
Allow me, dear Prof Parlatore, to send you by this mail through the friendly mediation of Chevalier Biagi a small package with some memoirs, also a branchlet of a Taxodium (perhaps a var. of T. distichum) which I find not recorded by you in the prodromus.1 The photogram of Frenela Macleayana Parl. may please you also. I may mention as additional to your splendid elaboration of the Coniferae, that Podocarpus elata extends as far south as Illawarra (vide Fragmenta)2. D. Don wrote the genus Athrotaxis not Arthrotaxis, as done by Sir William Hooker, but not Dr J Hooker.3 The appellation Saxe-Gothea might be improved to Saxono Gothaea, as done by me 12 years ago in the index of plants of this garden.4 Araucaria Rulei is described in the Gardeners Chronicle of Lindley 1861 [p.] 8685 with a good woodcut.
I think you have not [quoted] all the plates of Lamarks encyclopaed.6 nor the large plates & text of Lawsons Pinetum Britannea7 Pinus Orizabae and some other plants mentioned by various authors, particularly Henkel & Hochstetter,8 are not recorded in the prodromus. My friend Prof Bolander has in the Californian Horticulturist vol. I, pag. 57-59 commenced to revise the Coniferae of California still further,9 though you have done so much towards their true limitation already. He gives Pinus Sinclairii as the oldest name of P. insignis &c &c.
I see no reason why the older name Nageia should be [permanently] abolished in favor of Podocarpus10 In Thuya11 gigantea I find often seeds under each scale. Dammara robusta is described by me in the pharmaceut Journal of Victoria vol II p. 173-175 (1860).12 This Dammara has recently been found at Rockinghams Bay. In my excursion to Mount Field in the South Alps of Tasmania in 1869 I found that Pherosphaera Hookeriana is an erect bush, several feet high (vide papers of the Royal Soc of Tasm. 1870, 19)13 I found also on Mt Field Athrotaxis cupressoides, A. laxifolia, A. selaginoides and Microcachrys tetragona.
I thought you might collect supplemental notes on Coniferae for publication and that these few lines might be acceptable.
With regardful salutation
Ferd von Mueller
Araucaria Rulei
Arthrotaxis
Athrotaxis
Athrotaxis cupressoides
Athrotaxis laxifoloa
Athrotaxis selaginoides
Coniferae
Dammara robusta
Frenela Macleayana
Microcachrys titragona
Nageia
Pherosphaera Hookeriana
Pinus insignis
Pinus Orizabae
Pinus Sinclairii
Podocarpus elata
Saxe-Gothea
Saxono Gothaea
Taxodium distichum
Thuya gigantea
A. P. de Candolle (1823-73).
Parlatore (1868), p. 517, lists P. elata from Rockingham's Bay (Qld), citing a specimen from 'herb Muell.!'. In B64.02.01, p. 87, M reports that it extends as far south as the Illawarra district, NSW.
For example, W. Hooker (1836-54), vol. 6, tabs. 559, 573, 574, 560; J. Hooker (1859a), p. lxxvi.
B58.11.02, p. 25.
editorial addition. — MS torn. See B61.09.01. Parlatore (1868), p. 371, cites M's herbarium name, rather than the account in the Gardeners' chronicle.
Lamarck (1791-1823).
Britannicum? i.e. Ravenscroft (1863-84)?
Henkel & Hochstetter (1865).
Bolander (1870-71), p. 57 (in part issued December 1870) discusses the synonymy Pinus insignis, P. californica, P. radiata, P. tuberculata, and concludes that its earliest description was as P. sinclairii in Beechey's voyage, i.e. W. Hooker & Arnott (1841), p. 392, a copy of which M did not own in 1865 or list in 1868 (B65.05.01, B69.07.03). IPNI give February to March 1840 for the publication of part 9, which includes this species.
In B89.05.03, p. 184, M prefers Nageia Gaertner 1788 to Podocarpus Persoon 1807.
Thuja?
B60.10.01, p. 174, acknowledging C. Moore's name. Parlatore (1868), p. 376, cites the name from Charles Moore's herbarium, but does not note the prior publication by M.
In B71.13.05, p. 19, M describes P. hookeriana as an erect shrub 2-4' high.
Please cite as “FVM-71-02-26,” 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