From George Bentham   27 August 1873

25, WILTON PLACE. S.W.

London

Augt 27 1873

My dear Sir

I trust you will have received safe the Monocotyledons which were sent I believe by the Kosciusko All I have still are your Calectasias and Kingias which I suppose you sent by mistake but which I consider it not worth while to return to be sent again next year

I send by this post four more sheets. I hoped to have sent the whole as I have corrected the proofs of all but the Index, but the printers took another holliday which occasioned another fortnights delay

I have to thank you for the last sheets of Fragmenta — I am glad to see that you continue to get new and interesting plants to publish preparatory to the Supplemental volume of the Flora which I feel certain will be left for you to work up — All I can hope to have life & health left for is to work up the 7th volume which will I believe just take in the remaining Monocotyledons and Ferns I cannot however set about it till next summer and no one knows what may be the effect of another winter on one of my age. You need not think therefore of sending me the remaining Monocotyledonous specimens till next spring.

I was sorry to see you taking up the modern German notion of reviving obsolete names to replace those which are universally adopted. It is all very well to restore a name of Loureiros for genera only known to a few botanists — but abolishing such well established names as Stylidium and Forstera only creates confusion and retards instead of advancing science. The change will certainly not be adopted and only adds to the heavy synonymy with which the science is clogged and which tends so much to depreciate systematic botany in the eyes of the philosophical biologist.

I think it would be very desirable if you could prepare for publication in your own name immediately after the completion of my seven volumes an additional one containing all the additions & corrections you have to make to the Flora — and a general survey of the botany of Australia and its distribution over the territory with relation to physical conditions and to presumed origin — all which can be much better worked out in the country itself than here and is therefore much fitter to be undertaken by you than by me even if my time admitted of it — but I can only think now of trying to bring to a close what I have in hand without attempting anything new

Yours very sincerely

George Bentham

Baron v Mueller

It would be better in directing to me not to put P L.S. or Prest Linn. Soc. as I shall most probably soon quit the chair.

Calectasia

Forstera

Kingia

Stylidium