From Joseph Hooker1    17 December 1871

Dec 17 /71

Dear Von Mueller

I have often tried to identify our Australian Palms, but hitherto in vain. Will you tell me what the Palm figured in Botanical Magazine t. 4961 as Seaforthia elegans,2 & which has long been grown & known at Kew under that name, to which Brown assented. Cunningham sent it some 30 years ago. Wendland however according to Seemann, says that it has nothing to do with Seaforthia elegans but is a Ptychosperma

In your Enumeration of Australian Palms Fragmenta V. 49.3

you do not include the Coryphas — we have two which I have named australis & humilis.

Bull has just sent me a splendid Macrozamia near your description of M. Macleayi4 but frond very rigid [...]5

 

Corypha australis

Corypha humilis

Macrozamia

Macrozamia Macleayi

Ptychosperma

Seaforthia elegans

1
MS embossed with crest of Royal Gardens Kew.
2
Hooker (1827-64), vol. 93, t. 4961.
3
B67.07.03, p. 49.
4
Macrozamia macleayi was described by Miquel in 1868; it has been treated as a synonym of M's Encephalartos miquelii ( B62.05.01, p. 38), which was transferred to Macrozamia by A. de Candolle in 1868 (see APNI), but it is more likely that Hooker had misremembered the author of M. macleayi.
5
An unknown amount of text missing.

Please cite as “FVM-71-12-17,” 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 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/71-12-17