Naples
22 Augt 1828
Dear Henry
I am glad you do not quite give up Switzerland pray bring home with you lots of Cyc. Europæum – cactus helveticus Colchicum alpinum which travels well ’twixt flower & leaf & of the large heartsease so fine of Mt Cenis & I dare say of every other alp – I believe Viola grandiflora – I found a large Viola on Mte Miletto with laciniated stipulæ. I have sent you a huge box of roots by the hands or rather ships of Mr Falconnet who has adressed [sic] it to his own agent “care of Doxat & Co” it contains loads of Cyclamen allium, ornithogalum, scilla, Pancratium, &c – order it to be opened in Sackville Street <1> because there is in it a considerable bag for Css of Ilchester <2> – 31 B. St <3>– & as you told me that you meant to exchange with some gardeners you can do it more easily & fill up with any other roots you send into the country – I have also a few seeds I shall send by a courier I suppose they will be safe till you return – among them Rhin. Elephas brought by me self [sic] from Mte Miletto – &c &c – Viviani <4> holds a packet of Col. mont <5> – roots for me which I don’t know how to get home before their flowering time – if you can get them sent to you at Geneva or any where take them home & take half write me word immediately as Viviani & I have a correspondence suivie <6> – I send you also the new Linum found by me (but previously by Bertoloni <7>) which has made such a noise, & a fine saxifrage – I found a dark orchis – Lavatera sylvestris which is too near unguiculata – & thuringiana – how does your greenhouse do at Lacock I want to hear more about it –
Pray look out & enquire for Gentiana utriculosa & baldensis, rhodod chamæcistus, & take bulbs of every plant that has them – Camp. gramminifolia which I found at Mte Miletto on the summit – truly alpine – & a quite new Sedum like Album but with green leaves instead of brown – In the course of the autumn Tenore <8> is to give me a complete collection of the Flora Nap. <9> seeds for you – pray write & give me an acct of your discoveries – I am glad you like the picture I hope you had an opportunity of shewing it Ld Lansdowne <10> as he is I hear coming to Florence & I should like to recommend Wallis <11> to him. Wallis will be glad to hear his Guido <12> head is approved – it is from a print & coloured out of head – the other is a direct copy as you know.
Yr Aff
W F S
A Monsieur
Monsr Henri Fox Talbot
Poste restante
Ginevra
Notes:
1. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
2. Juliana Maria Strangways, née Digby (d. 1842).
3. 31 Burlington Street, London home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
4. Domenico Viviani (1772–1840), botanist.
5. Colchicum montanum.
6. Regular correspondence.
7. Prof Antoine Bertoloni (1793–1868), Italian botanist.
8. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.
9. Michele Tenore, Flora Napolitana…, Naples, between 1811 and 1838.
10. Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780–1863), MP, WHFT’s uncle.
11. Probably George Augustus Wallis (1770-1847), Scottish born painter resident in Florence who also was an art dealer and served as a representative of art dealers.
12. Guido Reni (1575–1642), Bolognese painter.