From Robert Etheridge, Jr   22 July 1896

22.7.96

My dear Baron,

Will you do me the favour to consider the following points, & give me the benefit of your opinion —

In your "Observations on New Vegetable-Fossils", Decade 2, 1883, p. 22,¹ you described fossil wood from the Haddon Gold-drift, assuming it to be that of your fruit genus Spondylostrobus. Now Schenk in Schimper's Palaeophytologie Vol. of Zittel's "Palaeontologie" p. […],² describes wood from the Ballaarat³-Gold-drifts under the name of Phyllocladus Mülleri, which he says the "Botanical Collection of Leipzig owes to the kindness of Dr Ferd. von Müller", I presume meaning yourself. Of this he gives three figures, and on the authority of Kraus says the wood of Phyllocladus is distinguished from that of Cupressi-form Conifers by the large oval [pores], inclined to the left, that are found on the parenchyma of its medullary rays. Now, from the fact that the wood on which Phyllocladus Mülleri was founded, is said to have been sent to Leipzig by you, it has occurred to me are P. Mülleri & your Spondylostrobus wood one & the same organism? On the other hand, altho' the perforations of the medullary rays of your Fig. 3, of Pl. 22⁴ (Spondylostrobus, op. cit.) are fairly large, still they do not appear to me to attain the size of those figured by Schenk in the corresponding part of his Phyllocladus Mülleri, nor are they oblique as in the latter, consequently the two forms may be different. It is on this point that I shall be glad to have your opinion.

I am,

Faithfully yrs

R. Etheridge

Phyllocladus Mülleri

Spondylostrobus