To George Bentham   10 September 1874

Melbourne

[10]/9/74

 

I wish to mention to you, dear Mr Bentham, that Mr Walter Hills Cocos! Normanbyana is an Areca, close to A Catechu, and that his Areca minor is a Kentia.1 The Kentia Mooreana I have placed in Wendlands genus Clinostigma, though he did not know the nature of the Albumen. I do not think that the new number of the Fragmenta,2 referring to this and kindred subjects will be out by this mail.

Can you not stamp still higher value on the 7th volume,3 by working out the genera Panicum, Andropogon, Scirpus, Cyperus &c cosmopolitically, so that at last a host of useless species may become suppressed

The volume would then become of sterling value to every country, just as R Browns prodromus4 became important to British phytography. It would be dealing with the matter once for ever. You have in Kew unrivalled facilities for the purpose, and the loan of Steudels collections might be got from France.5

Regardfully your

Ferd von Mueller.

 

An official report of my Department is in print, but as it has not yet been presented to our Parliament, I cannot send you a copy as yet. But when you receive it, you will see that I did exaggerate the demolition of my Department.6

 

Andropogon

Areca catechu

Areca minor

Clinostigma

Cocos Normanbyana

Cyperus

Kentia Mooreana

Panicum

Scirpus

 
1
See Hill (1874), p. 870. In B74.09.02, p. 235, M quotes Hill's name, correctly, as C. normanbyi,and uses that specific epithet in the new description as an Areca.
2
B74.09.01; the palms were treated on pp. 233-6.
3
Of Flora australiensis , i.e. Bentham (1863-78).
4
Brown (1810).
5
See TL2 for details of the history and location of Steudel's herbarium, of which at least part would have informed Steudel (1855), relevant to this suggestion.
6
B74.09.01. M may have omitted 'not', or this may be an ironic comment. The introductory paragraphs of his report include comments such as ‘I have been compelled to draw the line of my operations during the last twelve months into far more narrow limits than I would have wished’; ‘I shall … place before you statements on those branches of the service which, after the temporary withdrawal of most of the working votes of the department, and also of nearly all the buildings, came to a standstill’; and ‘I do entertain the hope, that my explanations will lead to such a reorganization of my department as will enable me to do, honourably, justice to the branch of public service entrusted to my responsible care’. On the other hand, M reports writing, and explains the nature of, ‘almost 2,000 letters’; his role in Bentham’s Flora australiensis, especially his ‘preliminary labours for the seventh volume’; other publications, including a defence of writing the Fragmenta in ‘an ancient language, taught at every grammar school’, and pointing out that all his other works are written in English; his ‘industrial researches’ resulting in a new list of ‘select plants readily eligible for Victorian industrial culture’ ,a translation of Wittstein’s ‘Chemical Analyses’, laboratory investigations of plant products and preparation of exhibits for the London exhibition; his field excursions on which valuable new species were discovered; and the issue of ‘educational collections’ (see Lucas, Maroske & Brown-May, 2006) and other ‘educational’ work.

Please cite as “FVM-74-09-10,” 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 2 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/74-09-10