Assistance at a distance: George Bentham, Ferdinand von Mueller and the production ofFlora australiensis

Abstract

George Bentham's seven volume Flora australiensis (1863–1879) was the first continental Flora, and for over a century was the only flora treating the whole of Australia. The work was produced with the “assistance” of Ferdinand Mueller, later von Mueller, the Government Botanist of Victoria from 1853, who loaned his collection, group by group, to Kew, enabling Bentham to compare the specimens with those in British and European herbaria. Mueller, who himself had wished to write the Flora, was stimulated to produce descriptions of the species as they were prepared for shipment, and Bentham's timetable strongly structured his publication programme. The limits of taxa recognized by each were similar, although there were often differences in the rank accorded the taxon. The return of Mueller's now authenticated specimens also temporarily transferred the power over Australian plant systematics to Melbourne, a power Mueller later used. Despite his initial disappointment that Bentham was assigned the Australian Flora by William Hooker in the series of colonial Floras, Mueller's association with the project later became a lifeline, helping him keep his self esteem after he was dismissed from his concurrent post as Director of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens in 1873.