To William Carruthers   3 December 1885

3/12/85

 

Would you oblige me, dear Mr Carruthers, by ascertaining, whether in your collections from Forster’s Herbarium1 specimens of Myoporum pubescens or M. crassifolium exist. The former is left unnoticed for N. Zeal. by Sir J. Hooker; perhaps it is a downy form of M. laetum; the other may be M. insulare, if Botanices Insula means Botany Bay, (is this so?) in which case the specific name may also have originated with Solander.2

If these two dubious plants are available in your collection would you oblige with sending fragments to me.3

My monograph[y] of Myoporinae is almost completed, so far as the 80 Quarto-plates are concerned.4

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller

 

I trust, you will take a favorable view as regards my propositions concerning Mr Forbes Papuan plants.5

 

Myoporum crassifolium

Myoporum insulare

Myoporum laetum

Myoporum pubescens

Most of the plant specimens collected by Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George during James Cook's second voyage of exploration (1772-4) went to the British Museum, where Carruthers was based.

J. G. A. Forster (1786a), p. 44, listed four species of Myoporum, namely M. laetum and M. pubescens, both said to be from NZ, M. crassifolium from 'Botanices insula', and M. tenuifolium from New Caledonia. J. D. Hooker (1853-5), vol. 1, pp. 204-5, gives M. laetum as the only Myoporum from NZ and remarks: 'Myoporum pubescens, Forst. Prodr., is quite unknown to me, and probably belongs to some other genus'. 'Botanices Insula' is a small islet near New Caledonia. . See Forster (1777), vol. 2, p. 439, entry for 30 September 1774:

Captain Cook gave this little islet the name of Botany Island, because it contained in so small a space a flora of nearly thirty species, among which we saw several new ones. Its situation is nearly 22° 28' S. and 167° 16' E.

No specimens of these species are preserved in the Forster Collection in the Melbourne herbarium.
The plates were published in B86.13.21. No text volume was ever published.
See M to W. Carruthers, 21 October 1885 (in this edition as 85-10-21a).

Please cite as “FVM-85-12-03a,” 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 28 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/85-12-03a