To George Bentham   8 October 1879

8/10/79.

 

It is with delight, dear Mr Bentham, that I learn of the completion of the genera to the end of Dicotyledoneae!1 What a grand work! Had you & Sir Joseph never done any thing else, it would hand down your name to posterity, & make all the world of Botany speak of you for all times. How poor has all my doings under so much adversity in my life, has turned out, in comparison to what I intended to have done, had the fates been with me more propitious.

I anticipate, that it will take you yet half a dozen years to elaborate anew the genera of Monocotyledoneae, notwithstanding the preliminary labors of Munro, Baker, Reichenbach fil, Wendland & Drude, Boeckeler and others in various directions.2 You will doubtless have at the end of the work a supplement, for which I can furnish some data, should you care for them. The cryptogamic genera, will they form part of the work through specialists? At any rate a volume of them has become very urgent, and much material for such is at hand now through the labours of several specialists already, Berkeley standing at the head of these workers. Though I have not been in the field for some time, I add always something to the "Flora"; just now Cymodocea isoetifolia from Champion-Bay.3

I have many additional notes to publish, but like to go on with the Eucalyptus Atlas first which on account of the technologic considerations4 I find a very heavy & tedious piece of work, altho the species require in some instances from augumneted material also additions & some alterations. Still, at a whole, your elaboration of them is very accurate.5

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

Dicotyledoneae

Eucalyptus

Monocotyledoneae

Cymodocea isoetifolia

1
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 3, part 1, containing the last of the Dicotyledoneae, was published in February 1880 (TL2).
2
The final volume of Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 3 part 2, was published on 14 April 1883 (TL2).
3
WA. Bentham (1863-78). vol. 7, p. 178, tentatively identifies some fragmenatry specimens from Queensland as C. isoetifolia.
4
Accounts of many species listed in the various decades of Eucalyptographiainclude details of mechanical and other properties as a guide to economic utility, as well as systematic and taxonomic details.
5
Bentham (1863-78) vol. 3, pp. 185-261 deals with Eucalyptus.

Please cite as “FVM-79-10-08,” 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 26 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/79-10-08