24/7/90
The Bassia Tatei, dear Professor, remains firm in all the specimens; so it has gone at once to the lithographer.1
Kindly look over your species of Corysanthes carefully, to see, whether you have more than one species. Bentham doubts, whether the specimens, referred by him to C. fimbriata, do really all belong to it. On renewed scrutiny I now find, that on the 16. Sept 1848 I collected on the eastern basis of the Barossa-Range2 a solitary specimen of what seems C. unguiculata. This one plant is however so shrivelled, that I cannot make sure of it, and I do not like, to destroy it in dissection. C. unguiculata has usually the leaves as red underneath as Acianthus, while the lower page of C. pruinosa is pale-green.
I hope you will gather specimens with ripe fruit of the two closely allied forms of Hypoxis, so that our friendly dispute about them may be settled.3 I am a sceptic about species, based on very light characteristics. Darwinism leads to Jordanism.4
I hope you are now quite strong again.
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller
Have you found any difficulties in sorting out Helipterum hyalospermum and H. Jesseni?
Acianthus
Bassia Tatei
Corysanthes fimbriata
Corysanthes pruinosa
Corysanthes unguiculata
Helipterum hyalospermum
Helipterum Jesseni
Hypoxis
Salsolaceae
Sclerolaena uniflora
See M to R. Tate, 18 July 1890. M described Bassia tatei in B90.09.02; it was depicted in B91.13.24, plate LXXI. After the specimen had been drawn, M returned it to Tate with M to R. Tate, 30 July 1890 (in this edition as 90-07-30a).
SA.
See M to R. Tate, 6 July 1890.
The French botanist A. Jordan was a notorious splitter of species.
Please cite as “FVM-90-07-24,” 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