From George Bentham   17 December 1872

25, WILTON PLACE. S.W.

17 Decr 1872

My dear Sir

A box was sent off last week from Kew with your Coniferae and allied families as far as the box would hold. The large parcels of Cycadeae and the remaining Casuarineae and Urticeae will go in a box which I shall have made up in a few days. I have gone through the genus Ficus without waiting for the Prodromus as I find on correspondence with M. Bureau that he will scarcely begin upon the Australian and Indian ones for some months.¹ I make out 33 or 34 species of which 8 are I think are identical with Archipelago species besides F. nesophila and F. Cunninghamii (Fraseri) which are perhaps varieties only of F. infectoria. I have sent the list with synonyms to M Bureau who is now regularly installed at the herbarium of the Jardin des Plantes It would be rendering a service to science if as soon as convenient after receiving back your specimens you would make up a set for the Paris Herbarium as well of Ficus and other Artocarpeae as of Casuarineae which M. Poisson of the Paris Herbarium has been studying with reference to the New Caledonian ones²

At the British Museum they have lately found the missing parcel of Brown's Thymeleae & Santalaceae I have gone them over and ascertained that we were mistaken about Browns Pimelea brevifolia. There is but a single specimen which is undoubtedly Meissner's P. modesta, and the species we called P. brevifolia must take a new name.

In Ficus I find that Dallachy had unfortunately confounded F. magnifolia and F. hispida (as he admits in later notes) and had sent you fruits of the latter with the large-leaved branches of the former, which is a Eusyce and not a Covellia

Your F. vesca appears to me to be precisely the F. glomerata Willd.

I have admitted as new and distinct species your F. colossea, F. validinervis, F. ehretioides, F. mollior, F. stenocarpa (with unisexual receptacles, the males cylindrical the females ovoid.-globose), F. fasciculata and F. casearia, besides two to which you had not given names and those which you or Miquel had already published, although I have had to suppress a good many of Miquel's

I have adopted Bureau's views as to Malaisia Cudrania Pseudomorus and Fatoua consisting each of a single species. In Trema (or Sponia) we must I think admit three Australian species — orientalis, velutina and aspera unless we unite as one species almost the whole of the Asiatic and African ones.

Celtis ingens and C. (Solenostigma) brevinervia³ Blume are certainly not different from C. paniculata. The specimens placed side by side from New Guinea Norfolk Island and Australia are identical

C. strychnoides cannot be distinguised from C. philippinensis

Your Taxotrophis rectinervis is identical with Aphananthe Philippinensis Planch.

I shall now go through the supplemental Euphorbiaceae Thymeleae etc and then begin upon Orchideae — but two days in the week are taken up with proofs of Genera Plantarum⁴

Yours very truly

George Bentham

Baron F. v. Mueller

Aphananthe Philippinensis

Artocarpeae

Casuarineae

Celtis brevinervis

Celtis ingens

Celtis paniculata

Celtis philippinensis

Celtis strychnoides

Coniferae

Cudrania

Cycadeae

Euphorbiaceae

Fatoua

Ficus casearia

Ficus colossea

Ficus Cunninghamii

Ficus ehretioides

Ficus fasciculata

Ficus Fraseri

Ficus glomerata

Ficus hispida

Ficus infectoria

Ficus magnifolia

Ficus mollior

Ficus nesophila

Ficus sect. Covellia

Ficus sect. Eusyce

Ficus stenocarpa

Ficus validinervis

Ficus vesca

Malaisia

Orchideae

Pimelea brevifolia

Pimelea modesta

Pseudomorus

Santalaceae

Solenostigma brevinervia

Sponia aspera

Sponia orientalis

Taxotrophis rectinervis

Thymeleae

Trema orientalis

Trema velutina

Urticeae