To Joseph Hooker   19 May 1884

19/5/84

A few days ago, Dear Sir Joseph, I received from one of the missionaries of New Guinea¹ a small parcel of plants, collected in the upper regions of Mt Owen Stanley’s Range, not reached by them before. Among these few plants is one of remarkable showiness, so that I wrote a description of it at once, although unfortunately the fruit is wanting. It is evidently gesneraceous; but I find nothing like it figured by Mr Clarke² As however meanwhile Dr Beccari’s Gesneraceae may have become published,³ and as moreover some other publications concerning that order may have very recently emanated in Europe and remained unknown to me, I deem it best, to send the description to you,⁴ accompanying it by the best half of the foliage specimen, I possess. Unfortunately the fruit was not obtained

Will you kindly spare the little time, it will take you, to cheque⁵ any shortcomings on mine, as I have written the description away from my office at Dr Buettner’s hospitable house,⁶ where I have but few books. Though I shall leave it quite to you where these notes may be published, if at all you approve of them, — I would venture to suggest, that Mr Britten might get them, because he repeatedly asked me for a contribution, and I have become quite faithless to his Journal⁷ for years. The local journals, which recently arose here, demand from me frequently litterary data; and you can understand that as a Colonist I cannot well refuse their request based on what is considered prior claims of the colony. Should I have failed to recognize this genus as known, and should still the species be unrecorded, then I would suggest that the finder’s name should become that of the species, so that the valiant Mr Chalmers, who is a splendid “Bushman” (as we say in Australia) gets this little botanic reward for what must have been a most toilsome ascent of the Mt Owen Stanley’s Range that far.

I am so glad to hear, that Mr Bentham regains some strenght; and trust, that he will still further improve in his health this summer. Thus my long held anticipations, that he will outlive me, are almost sure to be realized.

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller.

In the parcel brought from this tour by Mr Chalmers, is only one other plant of some importance, which I will pass through the press here.

Dr Buettner is a leading practitioner here. He studied 4 years in Berlin, where he took his degree, and then spent £3000- additionally to hear all the great specialists for several years in Paris, Vienne, Leipzig, Italy and also in Britain,⁸ taking out three scottish degrees. His Lady is highly accomplished in music, languages &c, and as the whole family is german I feel not only, that I am under the best of treatment, but also that I have special sympathies, altho my English friends here express themselves also most kindly. Still I am very weak yet, so much so, that I again fainted last night, the violent paroxism of cough wearing out my strength and allowing me little sleep at any time

You have also now the best of the two trusses of flowers, got by the Rev Mr Chalmers.⁹

Chalmersia ¹⁰

Calyx divided to near the middle into five semielliptical almost equal lobes. Corolla several times longer than the calyx; its tube gradually widened upwards, slightly curved; limb about three times shorter than the tube; upper lip slightly longer than the lower, bifid, its lobes roundish-blunt, nearly as broad as long; lobes of the lower tripartite lip nearly twice as long as broad, blunt. Fertile stamens four; the two longer of these slightly extended beyond the corolla, the two shorter stamens not quite reaching to the end of the lobes; filaments free from near the middle of the corolla-tubes, filiform, not appendiculated; anthers cohering in pairs at their apiculated summits, affixed above the base, bursting longitudinally, expanding elliptically; their cells parallel and connate. Sterile stamen rudimentary, capillary, adnate, much abbreviated. Pistil filiform, not much extended beyond the corolla; style thin, much shorter than the ovary; stigma divided into two semielliptic lobes. Ovary glabrous, stipitated, not twisted; ovules numerous. Disk entire, cupular. Fruit unknown.–– A Papuan herb, with procumbent, probably short stem, with scattered thin ovate-lanceolar irregularly serrated leaves, with elongated peduncle bearing a rich fascicle of large flowers.

A new genus of gesneraceous plants, belonging to the tribe of Didymocarpeae, differing from all other known genera of the order in the conjoint characteristics of scattered leaves, parallel connate anther-cells and filiform ovary.

Chalmersia Papuana

In the higher regions of Mount Owen Stanley’s range; Rev James Chalmers. Stem rooting; densely hairy. Leaves 3 – 4 inches long, flat, appressed-hairy, gradually attenuated into a petiole of about one inch length, hardly paler beneath. Flower-stalk nearly a foot long, appressed-hairy. Flowers on the summit of the stalk numerously crowded. Stalklets a few lines long. Bracts spatular, about ⅛ inch long. Calyces measuring 3 – 4 lines in length, scabrous-hairy outside; the sinuosities open in bud. Corolla about 1½ inch long, dark-red in dried state, minutely rough-dotted all over, bract with very short hair outside, glabrous inside except towards the base, where scattered short hair occur. Anthers glabrous, about one line long, dark-colored, their slits anterior. Style roughly short-hairy. Lobes of stigma plan-convex, about ⅔ line long. Disk glabrous.¹¹

Gesneraceae

Chalmersia Papuana