To Odoardo Beccari   5 February 1880

5/2/80.

Your consignment of Sumatra-plants, dear Dr Beccari, has arrived safely,¹ and I thank you for your kindness of contributing them to my collections, which were hitherto poor in material from Sumatra.² I am aware that as a rule travellers in distant foreign lands cannot obtain the various species during one season in a complete state of specimens, and so you fo[u]nd³ it in Sumatra. But thus it will be often also difficult to fix the species from your specimens, altho’ the genus can be ascertained in most cases. For instance your Sloanea may be S. Sigun, altho’ the capsule is 2-3-celled and the prickles are shorter; your specimens make it not quite sure, whether these distinctions are specific, otherwise I intended to name the Sumatra species in honor of yourself.⁴ Kurz (Forest flora of Burma I, 162)⁵ gives Tenasserim also as a locality of Echinocarpus Sigun, hence it may well extend also to Sumatra. I may incidentally observe that the four Australian species establish completely the transit from Sloanea to the subgenus Echinocarpus.

It seems to me, my dear Doctor, that in very many cases the sacrifice of time, required for a critically accurate examination of your Sumatra plants, would be out of proportion to results, unless along with them also Borneo — & Papua — species could be examined. Moreover Miquel has given already, as you are aware, a very extensive list of Sumatra-plants,⁶ and while I perhaps described the probably few new species in the set, received from you, so far as this can be done from the specimens, the same plants may pass into your Malesia or other publications simultaneously. Your 476, although without fruit, is Lycopodium volubile Forster. Have you a few fragments of your Palmeria to spare for comparison?

It is a pity, that you could not have sent me the second set of your Leguminosae, Myrtaceae & Rubiaceae on loan, as the Museum requires only the first set. Could you not at all events send me all your Albizzias & Proteaceae for elaboration as they would not be numerous & as they interest me much as an Australian worker, and could you spare duplicates of Signor D’Albertis’s⁷ last Papuan Collection?

Regardfully your

Ferd von Mueller

I hope to send you soon a case with dried plants of Australia for your Museum⁸

Albizzia

Echinocarpus Sigun

Leguminosae

Lycopodium volubile

Myrtaceae

Palmeria

Proteaceae

Rubiaceae

Sloanea Sigun