To Odoardo Beccari   26 July 1886

86/07/26

I was pleasingly surprised, dear Dr Beccari, to receive together two parts of your admirable “Malesia” by last mail,¹ and beg to thank you for your generous sending; it will be for my private library, but I always order also a copy through Dulan & Co for my Department, so that I have tw[o]² sets of this important work. Your learned es[say] on the ant-plants h[as] now come to a worth[y] conclusion.

I am not surprised [that] our friend Baron C[esati] and myself have [not al]ways recognized the [New] Guinea ferns with absolute correctness, or viewed them in Hookers and Bakers limitation.³ Indeed Darwinism leads to Jordanism! (entre nous).⁴ — Both Cesati and myself may in some cases have trusted too implicitly to incorrectly named Asiatic and other specimens of ferns in our collections for comparison. At the whole, he as well as I, have come fairly near the truth in our identifications. — But you will wonder why I did not, when resuming the “Papuan Plants” for elaborating the plants of Capt Everills & Mr Forbes’s Expeditions refer to Cesati’s memoir.⁵

This is easily ex[plained ….]⁶ published D’Alber[tis …] towards the end o[f …] and Cesati publis[hed …] in Febr 1877. — In […] I explored at Shar[k Bay…] and in other parts […] Australia;⁷ and th[…] essay of our lamen[ted …] must have come, w[…] I was away. In all […]lity, when among th[…] of accumulated prints on my return I glanced merely on the “Prospetto”, I was misled by the word “Polinesia” in the title, as New Guinea is not strictly Polynesian. Soon after in 1877 I became very ill, for a long time, in 1878 I moved into new quarters with library &c &c; — in 1879 we had to commence the heavy extra-work for the [… Melb]ourne exhibition⁸ [… i]n which also Italy [… sp]lendidly represented. [… los]t sight of the “Prospetto” […]ur, and hunted it […] now, when I saw […]oted by Baker⁹ and […]elf in the 3th¹⁰ vol […M]alesia. I shall cer[tainly] explain this unin[tentio]nal shortcoming in the forthcoming (almost ready) 9th number of the Papuan Plants.¹¹

Before I leave this subject I like to remark, that I by no means concur in all the limitations of our friend Baker, who likes to keep up Nephrodium, Nephrolepis, Gymnogramme in due piety to Hooker senior though we should “numquam in verba magistri jurare”¹² — Exempli causa take Schizaea dichotoma; how can be united to it S. Forsteri, which both Sprengel and Willdenow clearly defined in the beginning of the century. As Mr Baker never saw a[…] Schizea in a wild sta[te] he may be easily misl[ed] though S. Forsteri be[longs] almost to the section [Ac]tinostachys, as I poin[ted out] in Campbell’s “New [Hebri]des”,¹³ of which work I […] gave you a copy. — It will be worth your while, [to in]vestigate this Sch[izea] question independen[tly] in Italy; the two c[…] distinguished at a glance! but S. bifida is only a small form of S. dichotoma, as any one can see on the heathground near Melbourne. Kindly tell me the results of your examination, as this matter should be cleared up, after the error has been continued in the Malesia.¹⁴

You will at last receive the volume on “Myoporinous plants” with 76 quarto-plates, its issue being long delayed at the binders establishment.¹⁵ The incessant demands [y]ear after year on my Department for the successive great Exhibitions,¹⁶ has much hindered my Museum-work; but the sorting of spare specimens is now under progress, and you will therefore soon get something in return for your Sumatran plants.¹⁷

And now my dear Dr Becari, I bid you “adieu” — I am suffering much from pulmonary inflammation, and even if that does not carry me off soon, — at best there can be little time left of my earthly career! If I can identify my name yet with some Papuan plants I shall be thankful to my generous friends like your self and then my bid¹⁸ of earthly task is done!

Ever regardfully your

Ferd von Mueller

Your Agapetes seem to me deserving a distinct generic place; the biformous anthers are quite peculiar, so far as my researches go, and bring them near Macleania Can you kindly tell me the year, when Marsigli¹⁹ published Firmiana, a good genus. How can species with superior and inferior radicle be put into one genus!

What a pity that Baker made a new fern genus on so trifling ground; the difference is not such as between Alsophila and Polypodium.²⁰

I notice a printing error, Angiopteris erecta instead evecta²¹

Best salutation to Signor D’Albertis²²

Actinostachys

Agapetes

Alsophila

Angiopteris evecta

Firmiana

Gymnogramme

Macleania

Nephrodium

Nephrolepis

Polypodium

Schizaea bifida

Schizaea dichotoma

Schizaea forsteri