28/5/90.
I regret, that I keep you so long waiting for the finishing notes on the Central Austral. plants, dear Prof Tate;1 but just as you must first attend to University-work, so I have to attend "a priori" to the daily routine-work of the office, which engagements happened to be very time-taxing latterly. Unfortunately the parcel is mislaid in the bot. museum here, which contains the specimens of Calycothrix longiflora; but altho' you say, that the plant from the last expedition June 14th was not that species, I believe it to be a mere form, and do not know what else it could be.
The Alternanthera from Painta-Spring2 I regard as a broad-leaved form of A. angustifolia. The Cyperus N 28 cannot be named with safety, as it has no ripe fruit and so the second Fimbristylis. The Panicum is P. effusum, RBr. The Scaevola ovalifolia constitutes a var with blue corolla and with verrucular-rough fruits. The Goodenia is near G. heteromera and G. filiformis; Altho' I am shy, to establish species from such scanty material, I have ventured to describe it as new and send msc. herewith3 Unfortunately the seeds are not ripe. I am in a similar fix as regards the supposed Polymeria; but at all events the dissection shows it to be an Ipomoea;4 but we cannot do justice to such a plant from so poor material.
I have failed to identify the Eriocaulon, and will write an accurate description of it within the next few days; that may take up several hours; the name will be E. graphitinum M. & T.5 In the quietness of Sunday I will go through the hundreds of specimens of Helipterum incanum and allied forms, to see, whether the H. Fitzgibbonsi6 should stand as a variety or as a species. Then only remains to be examined the Heliotropium which may be a dwarfed form of an usually taller species.7
Always regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller
Alternanthera angustifolia
Calycothrix longiflora
Cyperus
Eriocaulon graphitinum
Fimbristylis
Goodenia filiformis
Goodenia heteromera
Heliotropium
Helipterum Fitzgibbonsi
Helipterum incanum
Ipomoea
Panicum effusum
Polymeria
Scaevola ovalifolia
M and Tate had presented a version of B90.14.03 to the Royal Society of South Australia on 1 April 1890; at least some of M's 'finishing notes' were evidently incorporated into the final version, although some names reported here are not included.
Painter Spring, NT.
Goodenia fascicularis was described in B90.14.03, p. 108.
M and Tate described Ipomoea racemigera in B90.14.03, p. 108.
M and Tate listed the name Eriocoulon graphitimum in B90.14.03, p. 95, without M's promised description; in Tate (1895), p. 82 and Tate (1896), p. 180 it is spelled E. graphitinum. See M to R. Tate, 11 May 1890, and notes thereto.
H. fitzgibbonii?
Heliotropium fasciculatum, named in R. Brown (1849), p. 71, is included in the list, p. 96.
MS black-edged; M's brother-in-law George Doughty died on 26 March 1890.
Please cite as “FVM-90-05-28,” 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