To Joseph Hooker1    25 June 1884

25/6/84.

 

Would you oblige, dear Sir Joseph, to cause to be ascertained, whether the plant figured by Mr Fitzgerald in the last number of his "Australian orchids" as Dendrobium superbiens could really be referred to that species as originally defined by G. Rchb. I have not the needful publications here, and have not seen a Conservatory since I left the Garden.

The fragments of a Dendrobium, which I sent in my last letter may be D. triclost[….]a2 of G. Rchb. I overlooked the diagnosis in the Linnaea of 1876,3 also that a second Dendrobium of the sect. Pedilonum occurs in Australia, namely D. ophioglossum. What a pity that we have no monography of Orchideae. Rchb. fil morally owed it to those, who supported his orchidolog. researches so long and so disinterestedly, to have given us a monography ere this. I find some difficulties to work with his diagnoses.

I was much pleased with the beautiful figure of Labichea lanceolata; and your kind remarks concerning my reintroducing it pleased me also very much.4

Herewith a leaf and a few flowers of an only specimen of Latouria spectabilis. The pollen masses are in two pairs, and the lateral lobes of the labellum only cohere. I therefore transfer the plant to Dendrobium, and this necessity was almost foreseen by Mr Bentham.

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller.

 

I see, that Miquel (Fl. Ind. Bat. III, 645)5 reduces already Latouria to Dendrobium, this is not mentioned in the "genera"6

 

Dendrobium ophioglossum

Dendrobium sect. Pedilonum

Dendrobium superbiens

Dendrobium trichostomum

Labichea lanceolata

Latouria spectabilis

 
1
MS annotation: 'D. superbiens, Fitzgerald, is quite distinct from D. superbiens of Rchb f. [t]este N E. Brown.' MS annotation by Hooker: 'And | JDH.' See J. Hooker to M, 15 August 1884 (in this edition as 84-08-15b).
2
Partly illegible. No Dendrobium beginning triclost.. has been identified. Error for D. trichostomum? See note 3.
3
Reichenbach did not publish a Dendrobium in Linnaea 1876, but Reichenbach (1877) p. 40 has a diagnosis of D. trichostomum, and mentions the occurrence of D. ophioglossum in Cape York, Qld. See also Oliver (1877), p. 30.
4
Botanical magazine, plate 6751 (1884). M procured the seeds of this plant from Champion Bay in 1880.
5
Miquel (1855-9), vol. 3, p. 645.
6
Bentham & Hooker (1862-83).

Please cite as “FVM-84-06-25a,” 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 25 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/84-06-25a