‘Such Superfluity of Genera’: Ferdinand Mueller’s Criticism of Generic Limits in Wendland and Drude’s ‘Palmae Australasicae’ of 1875

Abstract

Through the loan of herbarium specimens and unpublished manuscript descriptions of new palm species, Ferdinand Mueller made a contribution toward ‘Palmae Australasicae', the foundational taxonomic work on the palm family (Arecaceae/Palmae) in Australia, published by the German botanists Hermann Wendland and Oscar Drude in 1875. In ‘Palmae Australasicae', Wendland and Drude established twelve new genera and described eight new species, thus, in a single publication, increasing about two-fold the taxonomic and nomenclatural scope of the palm family in Australasia. For Australia (including Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island), they enumerated a total of sixteen genera, twenty-six species and three subspecies. Mueller, however, was critical of the taxonomic decisions made by Wendland and Drude, particularly concerning generic limits. Mueller's taxonomic views on the palms were conservative and his interpretation of generic limits was relatively broad, preferring fewer genera and more species in each genus.