To George Bentham   23 March 1873

Melbourne bot. Garden

23/3/73

I got your kind letter, dear Mr Bentham, sent on the 13. jan,¹ and admire the wonderful power of your continued working. Let me hope, that it will long remain unimpaired. Only through Mr G Macleay, I learnt of the distressing sadness in your domestic life of late, and I cannot refrain from expressing my sympathy.²

I have again despatched a case with plant for your use, so that you may never be detained for want of material. It is the 58th.³ The 57th went by the Hampshire at the end of january. I hope the Kew Agent will make at once an enquiry after the case, when that Ship arrives, as Capt. Ridgers took it under his own care at the last moment, when no bill of loading could be obtained. Unfortunately I missed to send even a letter by the Ship. (I dread the chasm in the collection by any loss, and this would be severer if the material was lost before it had been seen by you).⁴

I will soon send an other case, which will contain the Liliaceae and allied orders, also the Najadeae. Then only Glumaceae including Palms will be left to be forwarded.

A few stray Orchideae go to you by this post to Dr Hooker's care.⁵ I have ventured to publish on them some notes,⁶ which partly lay bye since some time, as by the horrid disturbances in my Department even the fragmenta ceased to appear for more than a year. It seems that althogether I have added not less than seventeen genera to the Orchideae described from Australia. The Epipogium is particularly interesting, and perhaps you have advanced by this time so far among the Orchidea as to have recognized this genus also. There seems to be a fourth species of Drakaea in Drummonds Collection, not referable to Caleana. I shall look forward with particular interest to your investigations among the Orchideae, particularly after the ungenerous expressions of G Reichenbach concerning what I occasionally wrote on these plants.⁷

He might on the slightest reflection have perceived the difficulty of one, who works with an inadequate library and inadequate Museum Material for comparison. Besides 16 and 20 and even 25 years ago I could only make isolated observations, which would have been ampler and sometimes more correct, could I have worked at once with the large number of preserved plants now for us available, but only successively obtained. There is also a wide difference between anyone working on an Order like the Orchideae only at random when sparingly the occasion arises, and anyone, who makes the subject a main study of life!

I look also forward with very much interest to the main grouping, as adopted by you, for the Monocotyledoneae. Many of the Orders are as yet ill defined. Asa Gray worked lucidly on them, but his researches did not generally extend beyond American forms. Endlicher had not the advantage of working with such large material as now has accumulated from all parts of the globe for generalisation.

The apocarpous character breaks down in Triglochin and other cases. The adnate calyx separates families artificially from others of close relationships (so is it with the character derived from regular or irregular flowers)⁸ Altogether it will require your unparalleled experience to define the orders now a day, and to place them in the best sequence.

I sent your memorandum to Mr Bernays of Brisbane, with the remark that the parties there ought not to trouble with so small a matter so great a man particularly at such a venerable age. So I trust they will feel ashamed.⁹

— The supplemental parcels are of course only sent at any time for you to look on and select from up to the last moment, not to name the plants, which I can do here. I consider it always my duty to place at your disposal all what I have to the fullest extent, leaving the use entirely to your discretion.

With best wishes for you

Ferd. von Mueller

¹⁰Endlicher has the number of species of Conostylis doubly overated.¹¹ I distinguish 19 (including Blancoa and Androstemma and 4 new species) In all I admit 44 Haemodoraceae. It is remarkable that the whole order is left unrepresented both in South Australia and this colony.

I have sent now along with the rest of the Monocotyl. ovario infero also Kingiaceae as Kingia & Dasypogon have the ovary almost adnate. They connect, as it were, the Xanthorrhoea group of Liliaceae with the other liliaceous plants Your Lobelia pratioides has caused here on several places mortality to horses cattle & sheep this season.¹²

Ought not Liparis and Microstylis to be combined with Malaxis?¹³

¹⁴It seems that G. Reichenbach in Xenia (tab. 130)¹⁵ publishes Bauers drawing of a plant, which I described as an Oberonia, but which Reichenbach calls Eria limenophylax. But surely habit and pollen are those of Oberonia, not Eria. The text in the copy, kindly and generously sent by Dr Hooker, is not come to plate 130 yet So perhaps there you will have an enigma to solve.¹⁶ It is only now also that I see for the first time the plate of Dipodium squamatum &c¹⁷

I wonder what you will make of Dendrobium canaliculatum.¹⁸ Altogether the Australian Orchids now brought together will make a very respectable appearance. A few new species may still come from the jungles of the N. East and North, but the N.W. is too dry for these plants.

Has not already Pfeiffer in his nomenclator reduced Corysanthes to Corybas?¹⁹ I have mislaid my copy of that work, and thus cannot refer to it.

Galeala foliata is very distinct from G Reichenbachs G. altissima and all the other Indian species. The absence of Eria in Australia is curious; but like Aerides it might yet be found perhaps²⁰

Aerides

Androstemma

Blancoa

Caleana

Conostylis

Corybas

Corysanthes

Dasypogon

Dendrobium canaliculatum

Dipodium squamatum

Drakaea

Epipogium

Eria limenophylax

Galeala altissima

Galeala foliata

Glumaceae

Haemodoraceae

Kingia

Kingiaceae

Liliaceae

Liliaceae

Liparis

Lobelia pratioides

Malaxis

Monocotyledoneae

Najadeae

Oberonia

Orchideae

Triglochin