Lacock
May 4
My Dear Wm
Silene bipartita is generally considered the same with a common but very pretty species which goes about under many different names – As Mr Berkeley <1> is a fungologist, he should rather have imported from Malta the celebrated fungus Melitensis.
My gardener has a very nice way of raising ferns from seed. He puts some lumps of peat in a saucer with some water in the bottom of it, and sprinkles fern seed on the peat. This is put in the stove and the young ferns then begin to grow. Thus he has raised the stately Phlebodium glaucum. The easiest to raise is the yellow mealy fern. Our Wisteria is going to be splendid this year, many of its bunches are already open. You gave me Epimedium pinnatum which produced its flowers this spring, it is a very interesting plant.
I cultivate Tacsonia Mollissima for its fruit which hang down like large orange-coloured eggs – It looks well just at present.
Tomorrow I leave for Millburn tower <2> Edinburgh
Your affte
H. Talbot
The
Earl of Ilchester
Melbury <3>
Dorchester
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 08557.
2. Millburn Tower, Gogar, just west of Edinburgh; the Talbot family made it their northern home from June 1861 to November 1863. It is particularly important because WHFT conducted many of his photoglyphic engraving experiments there. The house had a rich history. Built for Sir Robert Liston (1742-1836), an 1805 design by Benjamin Latrobe for a round building was contemplated but in 1806 a small house was built to the design of William Atkinson (1773-1839), best known for Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford. The distinctive Gothic exterior was raised in 1815 and an additional extension built in 1821. Liston had been ambassador to the United States and maintained a warm Anglo-American relationship in the years 1796-1800. His wife, the botanist Henrietta Liston, née Marchant (1751-1828) designed a lavish American garden, sadly largely gone by the time the Talbots rented the house .
3. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.