To Joseph Hooker1    28 August 1880

28/8/80

 

The little book of Rev. G. Henslow, your brother in law,2 is very pleasing, dear Sir Joseph, and nothing better could be offered to the rising youth for imbibing the first knowledge on plants. I endeavoured to strike out some similar path in my "Teachings",3 though not acquainted then with the Rev Gentleman's efforts in the same direction.

By last mail I sent you the number of the fragmenta, which contains my latest notes on Palms.4 I also sent a few pieces of Palm specimens, so far as I had them, to your request.5

Travelling in our palm regions is so expensive and difficult and often very dangerous, that it is not surprising when we find the material so unsatisfactory.

Still, some of the collectors, particularly Dallachy, whom I have paid at the rate of £150 for 10 years as collector, might have done much better. The excuse was often, that it was such a thirsty country to travel through, before one get to the brooks, on which Palms grow.

After the Exhibition6 I may take a ramble to the north myself, though it will be [very]7 expensive, to move about in the pristine pathless forests or fever-jungles.8

I anticipated you in the transfer of Kentia minor to Bacularia,9 which genus was sufficiently defined for Wendland's ad[o]ptation, who rather selfishly put forward his Linospadix, and who can well afford to leave in fairness at least that one genus to me.10

Regardfully

your

Ferd. von Mueller

 

You will be aware, that I reduced Kentiopsis (before Beccari) to Kentia in the fragm.11

Drude abopts12 now Bacularia also.

 
 

Bacularia

Kentia minor

Kentiopsis

Linospadix

 
1
MS annotation by Hooker: 'And [Nvr] 8/80'. See J. Hooker to M, 8 November 1880.
2
Henslow (1880).
3
B77.13.07. See Lucas, Maroske and Brown-May (2006).
4
See M to J. Hooker, 10 August 1880. B80.02.02 contains notes on palms at pp. 88-9.
5
See J. Hooker to M, 10 June and 5 July 1880.
6
International exhibition, Melbourne, 1880-1.
7
Uncertain transcription: word partly obscured by binding.
8
M did not make the trip.
9
M described Kentia minor in B74.09.02, p. 235, but referred it to Bacularia minor in B78.11.04, p. 58.
10
M erected Bacularia(B. monostachya) in B78.11.04, p. 58. See comments in APNI on date of description, and the fn to Wendland and Drude (1875), p. 198, where it is claimed that the characters of the genus Linospadix had been recorded, but not printed, in 1861 when it was introduced into the gardens in Hanover.
11
M described a number of species of Kentia in B70.04.01, pp. 99-104.
12
adopts? No published evidence that Drude recognized the genus at this time has been found, but he treated it as a subgenus of Linospadix in Drude (1887), p. 67.

Please cite as “FVM-80-08-28,” 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 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/80-08-28