29/10/83.
Yesterday, dear Prof. Tate, I intended to absolve your Kochia, but came to a standstill, as I could not find the specimens of K. triptera, to which, as you saw already, yours is nearest related. They are mislaid, which is pardonable with so little space at my command. So far as I remember K. triptera, it has larger fruits, but that is a very variable character in K. villosa.
Bentham found occasionally a fourth carina, and I see on yours the fifth sometimes diminutive. I should therefore be inclined to regard yours a variety; perhaps you have yourself K. triptera, and thus would be able to see, whether any other reliable differences existed between the two. As a var. or spec. this plant might be called by K (tr.) pentatropis; it would not well do, to name it K. pentaptera, as it has a sixth (horizontal) wing.1
Have you any fossil leaf-impressions? I shall have something to do to our miocene layers in this respect. Baron Von Ettingshausen has just described a lot of pliocene leaves from Tasmania and N. S. Wales,2 but (êntre nous) on quite unreliable characteristics, referring some to living genera, when not even the ordinal position can be proved!
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.
Ettingshausen speaks very kindly of what I have done for the pliocene fruits
My cough is hardly any better. I hope your health has improved
Kochia pentaptera
Kochia pentatropis
Kochia triptera
Kochia villosa
Please cite as “FVM-83-10-29c,” 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