To Joseph Hooker1    19 December 1893

19/12/932

 

This is the first mail, leaving for Europe, dear Sir Joseph, since I received from Dulau & Co the grand Kew-Index. What a splendid opus, to have the whole synonymy of Phanerogams up to 1885 before us! It will be an incalculably valuable gain, when the whole work is out, and I have no doubt, that you and Mr Jackson will be able to supplement it by to the end of our century, when not much will be left to be done.3

I am glad, seeing you supersede also Citrosma by Siparuna — Aublet['s]4 names undoubtedly should stand, unless disqualified by creating 2 genera instead of one. There is far more labour, as you know from own lengthened practice to furnish a plate than a mere brief diagnosis. Thus I uphold Lamarck illustr.5 also. Am delighted, that you did not abandon Tournefort, as so many of the Moderns or Novices would have it. Nomenclature must rest on an unimbiased feeling of justice. That has been my reply to many communications, which I had on primogeniture also in plant names. I have by this mail again a heap of prints on this subject, which lot I have not yet time to read; but my unalterable reply will be again, that even if we have ever so many congresses or conferences or deliberations, they will be overthrown like all other unjust legislature, unless all arbitrariness is avoided. I often wonder, what they will think of us about the agitation now on priority of plants names, a hundred years hence. As I said, permanency and unanimity can only be secured by absolute justice.

Perhaps I may venture to point out occasional inaccuracy, unseparable from all human work and more especially so from a gigantic work like yours. Bass[ia] Erskineana is a Sapotaceous plant. I maintained the name Bassia at the time6 yet for Sapoteae, calling Allionis genus Chenolea before.7

You will be gratified, that our exertions on Mr Bailey's behalf have been successful. I communicated with the hon. Aug. Gregory,8 pointing out that "as Pres. Austr. Assoc. he had for the time charge of Australian Science, and calling on him in that capacity to exercise his great influence for the benefit of Mr B."

With best festive salutation your

Ferd von Mueller

 

Will you kindly let Dr Dyer know about the […] &c.9

Of course no one is bound to accept decisions of Congresses which he did not attend

 

Bassia Erskineana

Citrosma

Siparuna

Sapoteae

Chenolea

 
1
MS black edged; M's nephew, George Doughty, died on 19 November 1893.
2
M wrote this date in the margin of the following newscutting, which is pasted at the top of the folio: 'Queensland. Brisbane, Sunday. Mr. F.M. Bailey, one of the recently retrenched civil servants, has been reappointed colonial botanist, at a salary of £200 per annum.' Bailey was reinstated from 1 January 1894.
3
Three exclamation marks have been added. Volumes 1 and 2 of Index Kewensis were published in 1893, and the remaining two volumes of the original work in 1894 and 1895.
4
editorial addition — Obscured by binding. All square brackets in the following text have this meaning.
5
For an example of M's use of a Lamarck plate without description as evidence of nomenclatural priority see M to W. Thiselton-Dyer, 31 December 1881 (in this edition as 81-12-31b).
6
1885, when M published Bassia Erskineana (B85.04.01, p. 930).
7
M described Bassia Erskineana as a sapotaceous plant in B85.04.01, whereas in IK it was listed among the Chenopodiaceae in a second genus of Bassia, erected by Allioni in 1766, that the editors treated as superseded by Chenolea (erected by Thunberg in 1781). Though M thus maintained Bassia among the Sapotaceae, as he says, he added: 'The generic name Bassia might well be changed to Illippe, as given by Koenig, as long ago as 1771 (Linné mantissa altera 663 [sic]), inasmuch as Allioni five years earlier established already a genus Bassia among Salsolaceae'. Linnaeus (1771), p. 563, indicated that Bassia longifolliais Koenig’s MS Illipe malabarorum.In B85.06.03 M himself transferred the species to Illipe. M had used Chenolea in B76.10.01, pp. 91–2. Koenig’s Bassia is regarded as ‘nom. illeg. later homonym non Allioni (1766)’ [IPNI].
8
See J. Thomson to M, 27 November 1893.
9
two illegible words.

Please cite as “FVM-93-12-19,” 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 26 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/93-12-19