From George Bentham   3 June 1873

25, WILTON PLACE. S.W.

June 3 /731

My dear Sir

I have to thank you for your letter of the 23d March and for a parcel of Orchidaceous specimens per port which came just in time as I yesterday sent off the Hydrocharideae Scitamineae and Orchideae to the printer.2 I had already determined the Epipogum which is the same as the Asiatic E. nutans.3 The Goodyeras are puzzling none of them true Goodyeras though I leave the two in the genus G. viridiflora is certainly the same as Georchis cordata from [Khasia] and probly4 the same as G. viridiflora Blume of which we have no specimen5 — I have been obliged to take the characters of the Scitamineae from the proof slip you sent6 for the box per Hampshire (which arrived safely) only contained the Alpinia coerulea the Musa and the Curcuma which we had already and the box per Somersetshire is not yet arrived

I have sent off by this post five more sheets of the Flora down to p. 208 Three more sheets are in type but the clean copies not yet struck off and this week's proofs will commence Monocotyledons

I trust you will have received safe the box of Orchideae in which was also a copy of the new part of our Genera Plantarum7

I hope that Mr Macleay will bring back better accounts of yourself and your goings-on[.]8 I should much like myself to have paid you a visit but I am far too old to think of it

Yours ever truly

George Bentham

 

Baron Ferd v. Mueller

 

I follow Brown in including Apostasieae as a tribe of Orchideae Apostasia though anomalous as a whole yet piecemeal has the perianth of Thelymitra the habit of Corymbis the ovary of Selenopodium9 and the stamens of Neuwiedia

I was disappointed in not finding among your Hydrocharideae an (Ottelia?) which we have from Drummond and from the Wendu10 river in Victoria from Roberston like a small slender variety of the common one but with a very thin membranous spatha and the capsule with only very thin small remains of the base of the perianth, our specimens are all in fruit only so that I am not certain of the genus.11 It would be well to search for it in your Victorian waters

 

Alpinia coerulea

Apostasia

Apostasieae

Corymbis

Curcuma

Epipogum nutans

Georchis cordata

Goodyera viridiflora

Hydrocharideae

Musa

Neuwiedia

Orchideae

Ottelia

Scitamineae

Selenopodium

Thelymitra

 
1
Pencilled at top of letter by M: 'Lilia[s]'.
2
Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, pp. 255-396.
3
See Bentham (1863-78), vol . 6, p. 308, where he attributes the name E. guilfoylii to M; although M described the species in B73.03.02, p. 30, he did so without assigning a name.
4
sic.
5
For the second species, Bentham retained M's name, G. polygonoides , B73.03.02, p. 29.
6
B73.03.02, pp. 24-7; see comment in Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, p. 260.
7
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 2, part 1.
8
editorial addition. George Macleay had delivered to M a case of deciduous trees from Kew; see M to J. Hooker, 25 March 1873.
9
Selenipedium ? Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, p. 396 has Selenipodium. See Hooker ((865-1904), vol. 124, text accompanying t. 7573, for comments on the spelling of the genus name.
10
Wando?
11
See Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, p. 257, under O.? tenera.

Please cite as “FVM-73-06-03,” 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 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/73-06-03