My dear Sir,
It not be worth while to send the Neapolitan daffodil alone here in a parcel. Perhaps you could get it flowered for me at Anderson's or Tate's in Sloane street & I could get the bulb in the [?] from them, & the flower could be sent here in a frank. The frost glass fell one night here to 13 ½ (I look upon the tale in the paper of its having been 6 degrees below & to be utter moonshine - bad thermometer) and the frost has done me some very vexatious injury. Besides killing many plants in the garden, it has damaged my [?] plants which have stood out of doors against the front wall of the stove with mats over them. They had succeeded so well for the last two or three years that I had trusted them, & had find them what were growing too weak indoors. Gladiolus Splendors from Gibraltar was near a foot high, & one night utterly killed it bulb & leaf. There was a very curious bulb from Aleppo which I could not make out. It had bright [?] & green leaves, about 5⁄16 th of an inch wide not tapering to the point as Aporanthus but quite blunt at the end & the margins [?]. Their consistences thick & groping. There was no sheath at the base of the leaves & therefore it could not belong to Narcifer. Its leaves 5 or 6 were grown about 5 inches long & the same night killed its leaf & bulb. My suspicion was that it must be some new broad leaved species of Sternebergin. You only sent me one root of it. I hope you may have saved it in Dorsetshire & have more than a bulb of it. Pray make a special note of it. The Aleppo Gladiolus is safe (certainly Glads. & not [?]). I am not sure whether my bulb of pink Gladiolus from Spain is killed or not. I have also to lament the loss of all my [?] seedling from Narcifous pocticus by Ajax [illegible deletion] Cerneus & A;bocams the great white musk daffodils, which is mortifying. These are my most grievous losses. Luckily there is a pot full of seedlings of Glads. splendous safe . It had in doors. My gardener has just heard that there is a large plant of a milk white Globose Fuchsia at Lord de Greys near Boxbridge. Have you heard of such a variety in the nurseries? We are under snow & with prospect of speedy relief.
Yrs truly
W Herbert
PS. May I beg you to frank two letters for me