To Joseph Hooker1    16 March 1880

16/3/80

 

Let me thank you, dear Sir Joseph, for the information on the Cyathea from Dandenong & Cape Otway,2 which species I shall now describe as C. gracillima.3 It is very close to your C. Cunninghami in some of its characteristics. It is delightful to contemplate, that your & Mr Benthams "genera"4 are progressing so fast. What a boon for all time that work to science. You will have no great difficulty of quoting my Eucalyptography, as it can be cited by the decades, an index of each being given.

You are rather hard on me for my mere suggestion, concerning the claims of Belis; the sound of the word is very different to that of Bellis, Bélis not Bellis.5 Kindly consider how freely Bentham disposed of the time-honored Didiscus for Trachymene without cause, the Dithyrocarpus for the barbarous Floscope6 (not even Floriscopa), Myriogyne for the antiquated & unmeaning Centipeda. Yourself restored Olearia for Eurybia, while J. Mueller set aside (without being censored) Siphonia, a name known not only to Botanists but to all medical & chemical persons since the last century — in favor of the forgotten Hevea, and justice seems to me due quite as much to Salisbury as to Aublet & Loureiro. Your great parent would doubtless have objected to the renovation of Hevea. I think we should have one rule,7 & then stand to it without vacillation. Of course I could adduce many other instances of changes, acquiesced in by A. de Candolle & others, to vindicate what I said about Belis; but really I am not interested in the subject, so far as that genus is concerned.

We have a change of Ministry,8 here always a series9 matter to any public Department.

Yours with best regards

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

The Eucalyptus- & Acacia-seeds of last months mail I have sent, thinking they might prove of value for experimental culture in the Channel-Islands.10

 

Acacia

Belis

Bellis

Centipeda

Cyathea Cunninghami

Cyathea gracillima

Didiscus

Dithyrocarpus

Eucalyptus

Eurybia

Floscope

Hevea

Myriogyne

Olearia

Siphonia

Trachymene

1
MS annotation: 'JGB' [John Gilbert Baker].
2
Letter not found.
3
Cyathea gracillimais not listedin B89.13.12. C. boylei , from the Dandenong Ranges, was named by M (French [1881], p. 33), but is now considered a synonym of C. cunninghamii ( APNI ).
4
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83).
5
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), vol. 3, p. 436 in their entry for Salisbury’s rejected 1807 name Belis in favour of Cunninghamia (erected 1826); ‘Nomen Saliburyanum a Brownio et Richardio rejectum fuit similiter sonantem Bellis, Linn.’ M's 'mere suggestion' has not been identified. See also M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 10 September 1881.
6
Floscopa?
7
That is, a rule for preferring a generic name where more than one exists in synonymy.
8
James Service replaced Graham Berry as Premier on 5 March 1880.
9
serious?
10
The paragraph is written on a separate slip of paper glued under M's signature. See M to J. Hooker, 18 February 1880 (in this edition as 80-02-18b).

Please cite as “FVM-80-03-16,” 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 19 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/80-03-16