From Benedetto Scortechini¹    8 December 1881

Roma² 8th December 1881

Dear Baron

I have been tossed over 300 miles west of my usual residence. Till the end of the expiring year I shall knock about this place. The trips which I planned for Wilson's Peak Fraser's Island, Bundberg³ have been blown to pieces by adverse winds. My Wilson's Peak trip on horseback was superseded by a trip to Warwick by rail. For the last few months I have not been master of my movements, however, after Chrismas I hope to have more time for myself.

Last Saturday week I was home, where I got your brief letter.⁴ Perhaps further correspondence from you will wait there my return. In answer to your last in hand I beg to say that the large oval fruit is that of Endiandra Muellerii your fruit; in the note which I have appended⁵ to said plant I mention my sending you this fruit. From the Flora I see that it is undescribed.⁶ It is worth describing it in your Fragmenta. It seems to be very large for its congeners. — The best specimen I could gather of Clematis No 175 has been sent to you. It was growing at the top of a stony mound isolated in the midst of a plain. It was scarse there and out of flower with no fruit. I took particular notice of the leaves which I found, every one of them, simple. As the plant withers, there is no change⁷ of getting better specimens till next spring. I will look out. — I plucked all the flowers of Cupania No 126, they were few, so when I went again to look for fruit, there was none. — of Myrtus No 169 and Leptospermum No 154 will gather fruit, I hope, next month. I know only one little nest of Loranthus Bidwillii growing on a pine at the mouth of Nerang Creek. If the flowers are out at my next visit to that district, the berries will be there I hope.

Since I wrote to you last I have seen the Revd. Tenison-Woods and mentioned to him your kind offer of proposing him a fellow of the Royal Society.⁸ He would be glad of the honor. He told me he was going to write to you on the subject. I expect he has done it already.⁹ You may kindly take steps for his proposal. His scientific labours deserve some honorable recognition. Yesterday he started for Bathurst N. S. Wales. Between scientific and ecclesiastic work he has been labouring hard in the past few months.

I am terribly disappointed with this place in a botanical point of view. Few desert plants make their appearance here. There only one Eucalyptus, which I have not identified as yet, the Acacia pendula, and another brigalow; sometimes I meet Acacia Farnesiana very stunted in growth. Two heremophilas,¹⁰ Mitchelli and longifolia, gejera parviflora,¹¹ and Apophyllum anomalum constitute mostly the whole scrub and forest vegetation. Boerhavia diffusa, Tribulus terrestris, and several Chenopodiaceae monopolize the small growth. To-morrow I will be out exploring, with little success, I expect. In a hundred miles of this country there are not many more varieties than in one single acre.

I do not know whether you may wish to have some particular observation made on some plants, which may be growing about here; if so let me know it at once. You may address your letter to Roma, from where I shall start towards the end of the month, so an early letter from you will find me here, any other will get me at the Logan.¹²

With my best regards I remain

Your humble Servant

B Scortechini

Acacia pendula

Apophyllum anomalum

Boerhavia diffusa

Chenopodiaceae

Clematis

Cupania

Endiandra Muellerii

Erimophila longifolia

Erimophila Mitchelli

Eucalyptus

Gejera parviflora

Leptospermum

Loranthus Bidwillii

Myrtus

Tribulus terrestris