17/11/94.
Am much touched, dear Dr Robinson, with Prof Goodale's and your kindness. It is most kind of your honored Chief, to send me such a large lot of Mexican plants, many of which will be specifically new to the Museum of dried plants here. I must endeavour to make a proper return sending, if even only by small successive lots.
I send you by this mail an impression of the second Census of Australian plants,1 which work you have not yet received from me, altho it is in the Library of the Gray-Herbarium. May I recommend this to your kind consideration. It is the result of half a century's thought and practical applications. I felt 40 years ago that the Monochlamydeae could not be maintained and distributed the Orders pertaining to them since nearly 30 years. This I mention to you for a special reason, because a prominent bot. Professor in the eastern states in a recent letter to me2 makes the remark "American Botanists are breaking away from the Candollean system" But by expressing his preference of a particular recent system he goes too far, because no other system can be so natural than that of Jussieu-DeCandolle, provided that the Apetalae of Juss are abolished
I see the danger, that many whose experiences are not large, may be fascinated by one or other of the newest arrangements, instead of showing loyalty to the sequences of D.C., so far as this is possible altho' his 4 Divisions of the Dicotyledoneae are not so good and clear as Jussieu's. In the third Census3 I shall make only two alterations, bringing the Droseraceae near the Saxifrageae where I place also Nepenthaceae and others and the Stackhouseaceae (minus Macgregoria) next to the Halorageae. Asa Gray, whom we all adore, would doubtless, had he lived, broke up also himself the Monochlamydeae for which "Incompletae" is quite a superfluous word.
Where American Phytographers can particularly help us all, would be to continue the publication of Asa Grays and Sprague's genera;4 we should then get a better idea of Buckleya and a number of other genera, which are of instructive significance for their natural position.
Next year an enlarged edition of the "Select plants["] 5 will appear (further enlarged), and I will send it then to you and Dr Goodale also. In the Census I have evolved the principles of Nomenclature also, such as lifelong studies tought6 me to be just and correct; if we legislate phytologically and zoologically not with justice all our legislation like any other will be overthrown again.
With friendship
your
Ferd von Mueller
Best greeting to the genial and generous Prof Goodale.
Apetalae
Buckleya
Droseraceae
Halorageae
Incompletae
Macgregoria
Monochlamydeae
Nepenthaceae
Saxifrageae
Stackhouseaceae
Please cite as “FVM-94-11-17,” 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 20 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/94-11-17