To George Bentham   25 December 1874

Melbourne

Christmas, 1874.

Since last I wrote, dear Mr Bentham, I have finished in sparehours an other portion of the Cyperaceae; so that now about 150 species got ready, and not more than about 50 are left to be done. Rob Brown & J Hooker have much overrated the number of the Austr species known to them, but many Indian ones may yet turn up in the tropical part of this Continent I shall probably have the whole remaining ones included in the next number of the fragmenta,¹ though I do not yet know, what Boedeker² may have done with those Austral species, which are contained from Siebers, Preiss, & my own and others collections in the Berlin Museum. Perhaps he has come in many instances to precisely the same results as myself.³ Meanwhile I may mention, that I reduce Mariscus & Kyllingia to Cyperus, and place Remirea near it, as you have done. I add Isolepis Micheliana, I. capillaris, Fimbristylis ferruginea, F. communis, F. dichotoma, F. aestivalis, F. miliacea, Gahnia xanthocarpa, Hypolytrum pandanifolium (a new species with the 6 restiaceous sepals of Pandanophyllum, but quite the Habit of Hypolytrum latifolium), Rhynchospora Wallichiana and some others to R Brown's species, in which Dr Hooker has much anticipated us.

Our Arthrostylis I bring under Fimbristylis (but not your Hong Kong Species with setae), Gahnia, Lampocarya and perhaps Reedia must merge into Cladium. Chorizandra multiradiata (?multiarticulata) = C. cymbaria, of which since I have described the fruit.⁴ I have given a fuller account of Evandra.⁵ Scirpus polystachys⁶ remains, as it is really distinct from S. radicans. Sc. plumosus I cannot sever from S. litoralis. Sc. fluviatilis A. Gr., as yet only recorded from N. America, is here on many places; it has a very distinct fruit to all appearance, and I believe it an exclusively fresh water plant, elsewhere likely confounded with S. maritimus. Gahnia trifida and Cladium Filum are clearly the same. All New Zealand & Austr. specimens of Sc. triqueter belong to S. pungens, as I pointed out more than twenty years ago,⁷ as I was well acquainted with these sorts of plants, when I arrived in 1847. You will of course largely add to the synonyms on the authority of the Kew collections, altho' I have swept also many of Steudels and Nees’s & others species away.

With regardful remembrance

your

Ferd. von Mueller.

Arthrostylis

Chorizandra cymbaria

Chorizandra multiarticulata

Chorizandra multiradinta

Cladium Filum

Cyperaceae;

Cyperus

Evandra

Fimbristylis aestivalis,

Fimbristylis communis

Fimbristylis dichotoma

Fimbristylis ferruginea

Fimbristylis miliacea

Gahnia trifida

Gahnia xanthocarpa

Hypolytrum latifolium

Hypolytrum pandanifolium

Isolepis capillaris

Isolepis Micheliana

Kyllingia

Lampocarya

Moriscus

Pandanophyllum

Reedia

Remirea

Rhynchospora Wallichiana