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Document number: 00713
Date: Mon 26 Aug 1816
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: STRANGWAYS William Thomas Horner Fox
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA16-32
Last updated: 2nd February 2018

Melbury <1>
Monday

My dear Henry

I am going to write you a botanical letter so you may read it at leisure or not as you please –

I am buying some of Sowerby’s <2> plates on the improved plan which you must remember his shewing us – but only those which are in Dr Pulteney’s <3> catalogue of Dorsetshire plants (& only the prettiest or rarest of them) which I mean to bind up & call Flora Dorsetia or Dorcestriaca whichever is most correct tho’ I believe Flora Durotrix or trigis or trigica would be more so than either – he mentions Tulipa [Pannafera?] [Intillaria?] Utricularia Serapias grandiflora & several others I had no idea of in these parts to which I shall add a few I know of on my own authority as Melittis grandiflora Ranunculus aquatilis Sagittaria M Nymphæoides <4> Filipendula – it will be under 200 plates & I shall get title pages or index pages printed – By the bye I am going to Russia <5> where they tell me there are nothing but Cryptogamia – pray write & let me know if there is any thing you wish me particularly to look after – & indeed I shall be glad to know what is to be expected in the dreary plains of Russia & Poland – We have also found the Hypericum elodes & pulchrum – Littorella lacustris – I have found the calycinum in the wood but it is doubtful as yet whether wild – Saxifraga hypnoides – I hope you live where the Herb Kit <6> is found – it is so pretty we have also the Vicia sylvatica Lathyrus nissolia – herb Paris – Narthecium – Comarum palustre Geum rivale & many others –

Yr Aff:
W T H F S

1816 Sherborne, Agt twenty Seven Ilchester <7>
W. H. F. Talbot Esqr
Castleford
Ferrybridge

Notes:

1. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.

2. Probably James Sowerby (1757–1822), artist and scientific illustrator.

3. Richard Pulteney (1730–1801), botanist. He practised as a physician in Dorset from 1864. Catalogue of the Birds, Shells, and rare Plants of Dorsetshire: from the new and enlarged edition of Mr Hutchins's history of that County (London: J. Nichols, 1799).

4. Menyanthes. [See Doc. No: 00727.]

5. WTHFS went to St Petersburg as a junior diplomat early in 1817. [See Doc. No: 00759].

6. Herb Christopher.

7. Henry Stephen Fox Strangways, 3rd Earl of Ilchester (1787–1858).