Melbourne
8/10/73
This day, dear Mr Bentham, I got a note from Mr Bennett in Sydney,1 who kindly looked up for me Capt Cook's reference to the Banana in the work on his first circumnavigation. I had not the book here accessible. The passage is as follows. p. 145 (anno 1770) while the ship was refitted at Endeavour River.
"This day some of our Gentlemen, who had made an excursion into the woods, brought home the leaves of a plant which was thought to be the same that in the W Indies is called Coccos … In the place where these plants were gathered, grew plenty of the Cabbage-trees and a kind of wild Plantain, the fruit of which was so full of stones as to be scarcely eatable"2
Through Endlichers flora Norfolkiana3 I was aware of the circumstances of this discovery, also from some fainth4 remembrance of the quotation, having in early years read Cooks work. It would have been without proper cause, to have had connected Sir Jos Banks name with this Banana or Plantain, unless he was concerned in the first discovery.
I suppose the plant5 will soon bear flowers at Kew. Then this may be explained, should it be delineated for the Bot. Mag.6
Your regardful
Ferd. von Mueller.
I am doing something more to grasses and Cyperaceae now. Panicum compositum L seems to include R Br's 4 Orthopogons.
Can Cenchrus inflexus be Danthonia triticoides?
Cenchrus inflexus
Danthonia triticoides
Cyperaceae
Orthopogon
Panicum compositum
M's emphasis. The passage occurs in Hawkesworth (1821), vol. 2. p. 145. A small portion of text after 'Cabbage-trees' is omitted in the quotation. Wharton (1893), p. 295 has:
Sunday 24th [June 1770] … Early in the morning I sent a party of Men into the Country under the direction of Lieutenant Gore to search for refreshments, they return'd about noon with a few Palm Cabbages and a Bunch or 2 of wild Plantains; these last were much Smaller than any I had ever seen, and the Pulp full of small Stones; otherwise they were well tasted.
See Beaglehole (1974), p. 439, for Cook's view of the inaccuracy of Hawkesworth's volumes.
Please cite as “FVM-73-10-08b,” 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 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/73-10-08b