To Joseph Hooker1    25 April 1880

25/4/80.

 

In casting a glance over your & Mr Benthams admirable volume III, p. I,2 dear Sir Joseph, I notice a few omissions, to which you may allow me to draw attention. I had some noted in former volumes & ventured to submit the memoranda at least in part to you. Balanops occurs at Rockinghams Bay3 & I had placed it also near Quercus, but had no flowers.4 I sent the fruit-specimen to you (now many years ago) & you said, that the same genus occurred in Polynesia, but thought it stood near Eurya.5 — Nuytsia has quite the habit of a Grevillea. The anthers of Laurineae occur also in Combretaceae (Gyrocarpus). — Batis seems to me to be a Halorageous plant, as stated by me in print some years ago.6 Piperaceae occur for extratropical NZ. & Chath-islands.7

I am not aware, that Meissner ever saw Muehlenbeckia platyclada (so named by me in the Bot. Mag);8 I corresponded with him to his lamented death. Do you now distinguish only one Telopea? I will send you a specimen of Eubothrium Wickhami. (Hill sent it as a Stenocarpus to me)9

I should have liked the name Saxono-Gothaea used in my report in 1858 &c substituted for Saxe-Gothaea. Strangea seems still to me a good genus.10

Hoping that you deem my frankness not intrusive, & trusting that your great work will come to speedy & glorious conclusion with a full supplement, I remain

your regardful

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

Do you like Raddlikofers split up genera of Sapindaceae.11 I do not! the splitting process is no gain & only encumbers memory.

 

Balanops

Batis

Combretaceae

Eubothrium Wickhami

Eurya

Grevillea

Gyrocarpus

Laurineae

Muehlenbeckia platyclada

Nuytsia

Piperaceae

Quercus

Sapindaceae

Saxe-Gothaea

Saxono-Gothaea

Stenocarpus

Strangea

Telopea

 
1
MS annotation by Hooker: ‘And’; see J. Hooker to M, 10 June 1880.
2
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83).
3
Qld.
4
M described Balanops australiana in B77.10.02, p. 114, noting that male flowers were unknown. Balanops is treated on p. 341 of Part I of volume 3 of Bentham & Hooker (1862-83), where the locality of its six species is given as ‘omnes Novo-Caledonicae’ [all New Caledonia]. There is an interleaved copy of this part at RBG Kew, with an annotation on the blank page opposite the entry ‘Rockingham Bay. Mueller in litt 25/4/80’. There are similar entries incorporating the information in this letter for Nuytsia (op. p. 206), Laurineae (op. p. 147); Batis (op. p. 88), which also incorporates information from M. to J. Hooker, 10 August 1880; Muehlenbeckia (p. 102) where (Meissn.) has been struck through and ‘F. Muell.’ added by J. Hooker in the margin.
5
Letters not found.
6
B76.13.03, p. 31.
7
This paragraph is marked with a line and an annotation that is partially obscured by binding: ‘[vix extra tropicos]’. Hooker takes up this point in his reply.
8
Bentham & Hooker discuss ‘M. platyclada Meissn’ on p. 102, citing Botanical magazine, vol. 89, 1863, t. 5382, as Coccoloba platyclada .The text accompanying the plate attributes the specimen figured to M as collector, and the name also to M, but in synonomy, from M’s earliest description as Polygonum platycladumin B58.13.02, p. 73. M discusses the generic relationships in M to W. Hooker, 23 January 1861. The name Muehlenbeckia platyclada does not appear in IPNI despite being mentioned in Bentham & Hooker.
9
There are double vertical lines in the central and right margins adjacent to this sentence. M must have misread the text on p. 104 which states ‘Species 2. Australiensis’ citing Bentham (1863-78), vol. 6, p. 234. Bentham & Hooker go on to compare the genus with Embothrio(sic), and asking whether E. Wickhami F. Muell., which was unknown to them (’nobis ignotam’) is intermediate. See B74.04.01, p. 164.
10
Saxegothea is treated on p. 434; Strangea is discussed and rejected as a distinct genus on p. 181, referring to M’s discussion in B71.07.01, p. 131.
11
Radlkofer (1875)?

Please cite as “FVM-80-04-25,” 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/80-04-25