20/4/88
The Richardsonia, sent by you, dear Mr Dean,1 I had a few years ago from Mr Betche also, and (if I rightly remember) I referred it then, as our friend Dr Woolls now, also to the genus Richardsonia, expressing the probability, that this plant might have been introduced from South-America. Mr Betche's specimens were imperfect, and thus laid aside for subsequent study from better material, in connection with South American evidently allied congeners; but the work in the department here is so varied, and usually so overwhelming, that, when once a plant is laid aside, it may not come before me for a long time again.2 I will now see, whether I can identify it with any species from South-America. It is quite possible, that I may have since passed it on some occasion as the Sherardia arvensis, which I know well from Europe, and of which I had the genuine plant repeatedly from Near Port Jackson,3 as I have often to use the late evening-hours to name plants for correspondents, when I may be tired after a heavy days work and my eyes very fatigued
Regardfully
your
Ferd von Mueller
It seems the intended ascent of Mt Seaview is not to be realized this season.4
It is seldom, that Lythr. hyssopif5 is found with such large flowers.
Lythrum hyssopifolia
Richardsonia
Sherardia arvensis
i.e. Deane.
Something similar may have happened with another specimen collected by Betche, a Swainsona that he collected in the Warrumbungle Rnges, NSW, in 1883, concerning which he wrote in November 1908: 'This is the only specimen left from the first lot of specimens I collected. At that time a set of all species I collected was sent to Baron v. Mueller for naming after my return from each journey. Mueller replied: "probably new, to be investigated" but never described it. Once a year, for about 3 or 4 years, I added a specimen from this sheet to the set sent, to remind F.v.M. on this undescribed Swainsona - till I had sent everything except the scrap left' (National Herbarium of New South Wales, note attached to specimen NSW340, Swainsona cadellii F.Muell. ex C. Moore).
NSW.
M had been urging an expedition to Mt Seaview, in northern NSW, for some time; see, for example, M to Linnean Society of New South Wales, March 1887 (in this edition as 87-03-00c), and M to E. Ramsay, 18 March 1887.
Lythrum hyssopifolia L.
Please cite as “FVM-88-04-20,” 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