To George Bentham   7 August 1874

Melbourne

7/8/74.

 

At last, dear Mr Bentham, everything for the second large case of plants for the new volume got ready & is packed for transmission. I have worked up the whole material more or less extensively. The 44 described Xerotes I have reduced to 18, adding only one;1 10 spec are exclusively western, 6 eastern, 3 reach across from East to West.

The Palms not yet back from Wendland, nor have I heard of him.

The Najadeae I have also done;2 but RBrs Caulinia spinulosa is a new genus of Hydrocharideae (Aschersonia),3 whereas also Enhalus is to be added to the Australian genera of that order.

The Grasses and ferns are all ready; but I will send in due course the Cyperoideae before, on which I am now engaged.

It would be well, if you could extend the cosmopolitan researches on Panicum &c &c with the large material at Kew. it would add to the value of the new volume and clear away a lot of spurious species[.]4 I made a fair commencement with due caution, so far as my material guided me.

With best wishes for your health

& happiness

Ferd von Mueller.

 

I find great difficulty in getting my observations here printed, often for a long time no pages of the fragmenta can be printed, and I have no journal in Australia for publications available.5

The Junceae, Restiae &c will go by the Agamemnon in the course of this month. Inventory is already sent to Kew.6

 

Aschersonia

Caulinia spinulosa

Cyperoideae

Enhalus

Hydrocharideae

Junceae

Najadeae

Panicum

Restio

Xerotes

 
1
B74.08.01, pp. 205-13. The new species was X. fimbriata (p. 211).
2
B74.08.01, pp. 215-19.
3
Bentham (1863-78), vol. 7, p. 183, refers to Aschersonia as a new genus erected by M in B74.08.01, p. 219, but refers it to Halophila, to which M considered it to be close. Although in his comment M considered that Caulina spinulosa should be treated as a new genus, he did not give a name to it. In B89.13.12, p. 193, M attributes the combination to Ascherson (1875), p. 368. See also M to P. Ascherson, 6 October 1874 (in this edition as 74-10-06c).
4
editorial addition.
5
Although M remained a member of the Royal Society of Victoria and was regularly mentioned in the annual Presidential addresses, the pubication of its Transactions was suspended after the withdrawal of the Government grant in 1868 and was not resumed until 1874 (Preface, Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 1874, vol. 10, p. ii). It is also possible that M would not have published there in any case, as he had ceased practical engagement with the Society following the debacle of the Burke and Wills Expedition, where his advice and experience had been ignored (Home 2015). M was however, continuing to pubish in the Papers and proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, for example B74.13.05, which was the third part of a series begun with B69.13.03. He later published a Samoan species in that journal, B76.13.02.
6
Inventory not found.

Please cite as “FVM-74-08-07,” 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/74-08-07