Talbot Correspondence Project: HOOKER William Jackson to TALBOT William Henry Fox

Glasgow.
June 10^th 1822.

My dear Sir

I am extremely obliged to you for the interesting specimens of the pyren�an Scilla, lilio-Hyacinthum & verna; & still more for your kind intention of sending me other of the plants you gathered in the South of France. There is a tolerably good figure of the Scilla lilio-Hyac. in the Plantes Liliac�es by Redout� ^<1> f. 205; but it is from a cultivated specimen & the corymb is too long.

I am glad to hear you, who have put the Flora Pyrenaica ^<2> to the test, give so favorable a character of the Author. There was an unfortunate quarrel between him & Decandolle ^<3>, of which I know not the origin, & which made them jealous of each other. The latter is certainly not great in his definition of species: but as a philosophical Botanist he has not an equal, except it be Brown ^<4>. I wish I could recommend to you a good Flora of the countries you are going to visit on your route to Italy: but I really do not know of any. Hoffmann's Flora Germanica ^<5> is lamentably deficient; not only in species but also in his characters of those that are included in his work. Yet I believe there is no other. As you probably read German you will ~~probably~~ be amused with the 1^st vol of travels (the only one that has yet appeared) of Hoppe and Hornschuch ^<6>, through the mountains of Carniola, Tyrol, Salzburg, Bavaria &c. Botany was their main object & they have related all their discoveries.

Indeed if you go to Ratisbon you will do well to call on D^r David Henry Hoppe, or Father Hoppe, as my correspondent Hornschuch calls him. He is a man much advanced in years; but a perfect enthusiast in Botany, & making annually an excursion into the mountains. He is well acquainted with the Botany of all the South of Germany, particularly with the Mosses. You can if you please, make use of my name as an introduction, for though I am not in direct correspondence with him, yet we have exchanged publications & I am sure he would feel gratified by seeing you. At Bonn (sur Rhin) is another able Naturalist, D^r Nees von Esenbeck ^<7>, author of an admirable work on the Fungi &c, whom you would perhaps like to see. I am in close correspondence with him; as I am also with D^r Nestler ^<8> of Strasburg if you should go that way. He is deep in cryptogamic lore & author of Stirpes Cryptogami� Vogeso-rhenani� in 6 vol^s 4^to. You are indeed going to visit many highly interesting countries & I shall be much interested in your botanical success. I hope you will attend to the plants of Italy, which have really been very much neglected by British Travellers in general: but this is not to be wondered at when we consider the great interest excited by the works of art, which can be seen no where else.

I shall be highly gratified if at your leisure you would ~~would~~ favor me with a few lines during your tour. I am about to visit a very different country the mountainous parts of Scotland this year - being anxious that the next edition of my Flora Scotica ^<9> should be much more complete than the present. I have already very great additions to make, especially in the Cryptogami�.

With very sincere regard, I am,
My dear Sir,
Yours most faithfully
W. J. Hooker.

Do not hurry yourself with the plants of the Pyren�es. I may add however, that in a few days Treauttel & Wurtz ^<10>, foreign Booksellers, Soho square, will send me a parcel in which anything can come to me.

W. H. F. Talbot Esq^re
31. Sackville street
London

Notes:

1. Pierre Joseph Redout� (1759-1840), Augustin Pyrame de Candolle et al., Les liliac�es (Paris: 1802-1816).

2. Probably Philippe Picot de Lapeyrouse (1744-1818), either the Histoire abr�g�e des plantes des Pyr�n�es ... (Toulouse: l'Imprimerie de Bellegarrigue, 1813), or Figures de la flore des Pyr�n�es: avec des descriptions, des notes critiques et des observations... (Paris: du Pont, 1795-1801).

3. Augustin Pyramus (or Pyrame) de Candolle (1778-1841), Swiss botanist.

4. Robert Brown (1773-1858), botanist. [See Doc. No: 00264].

5. Georg Franz Hoffmann (1761-1826), Deutschlands Flora oder Botanisches Taschenbuch... (Erlangen, Palm, 1800-1804).

6. David Heinrich Hoppe (1760-1846), and Friedrich Hornschuch (1793-1850), Tagebuch einer Reise nach den K�sten des Adriatischen Meers: und den Geb�rgen von Krain, K�rnthen, Tyrol, Salzburg... (Regensburg: Rotermundt, 1818).

7. Christian Gottfried Nees von Esenbeck (1776-1858), Das System der Pilze und Schw�mme (W�rtzburg: 1816-1817).

8. Christian Gottfried Nestler and Jean-Baptiste Mougeot and William Philippe Schimper, Stirpes cryptogam� Vogeso-Rhenan�...; excissata of cryptogams in 14 volumes, 1810-1858.

9. William Jackson Hooker, Flora scotica, or A description of Scottish plants... (London and Edinburgh: Hurst, Robinson, 1821).

10. Booksellers and publishers, of Paris and London. Hooker had an arrangement with them to enclose packages from other people when sending parcels of books to him.