From Robert Fitzgerald to Ferdinand von Mueller   4 Sep 1871

Survey Office

4th Septr 71

Sydney

Dear Sir

I send you by this days steamer drawings¹ taken at the Tweed and Richmond.² If there are any of them in which you take an interest I can send you the specimens though they have (owing to my having to neglect them) not been well preserved. The second drawing is I think of an undescribed species of the Ruticeae.³

The spur on the anthers of one of the mangroves (that with portion of seed) is not referred to in the description, if I am right in the naming of the spurs and there are other slight points of difference in it and others such as the Maidens blush in which two species have I think been confounded. I can send you seeds for comparing should you think there is a doubt — I also send you the flowers (all that were not knocked off in taking the plant from one green-house to another) of a Dendrobium which I think is distinct from D teretifolium. I found two great masses of it growing at Mount Tomah⁴ and being struck with the habit of it as very distinct from D tertifolium, I brought them with me and [one] of them has now flowered for me. The distinctions that I believe to exist are the dense growth of the Tomah plant, the limp and slender character of the leaves down which sutures or grooves always run the flowers being in pairs (with a rare exception of three) instead of round rigid sparse leaves seldom shewing any sign of a groove, and the panicles of from five to seven flowers. In the Tomah plant the column is not spotted and the spots on the petals and sepals are changed into very dark stripes, the lip (very long) having stripes on the sides but no spots except on ridges in the centre (the reverse of the other which has the ridges plain). There is a curious spur or tendency to one at the base of the stigmatic chamber.

I send a leaf of each and the seed vessel of the species which I think is distinct. The patern is so much the same in the flowers of the Dendrobiums even where there is no doubt that they are distinct that I think more weight should be given for that reason to habit numbers of flowers (as in D Becklerii⁵ and D Mortii) &c

I wish very much I could let you see my drawings of the orchids (for which I have just obtained a medal, at the Agricultural show)⁶ especially if I could have a talk to you about them at the same time but they are so awkward to send that I fear they would be destroyed if I sent them off by themselves. When you have time I should very much like to hear what you make of the (four?) Corysanthes and the Chiloglottis from the Brunswick⁷ as also of the bi-foliate Tarrietia from the Tweed.

You promised to send me a few copies of the wood-cuts from drawings of Howes Island⁸ plants when you publish them for which I should be very much obliged⁹

I regret to say that the copies of the Fragmenta you so kindly sent me are on being placed in the hands of the Binders found to be very defective.¹⁰ The drawings of many of the species of orchids of Tasmania given by Hooker are not I think all very correct or else the species are distinct from ours for example Lyperanthus nigricans¹¹

Yours truly

Robt D Fitzgerald

Chiloglottis

Corysanthes

Dendrobium Becklerii

Dendrobium Mortii

Dendrobium teretifolium

Lyperanthus nigricans

Ruticeae

Tarrietia