Boyton House
July 14th
Dear Sir
Many thanks for your Letter just recieved [sic] & for the Catalogue of Burtons <1> Eg. Antiquities I am still very anxious to see the Musa work <2> as I have now the pleasure to say I have two plants of it in good health!!!! I wish you could give me a sight of it for one day. I got here Wednesday & found more new plants than I ever had before now I should like to have the satisfaction of shewing them to you 120 distinct species of Cacti the Mendoza ones most curious. the splendid new Mexican Solandra fig: in the Mag: <3> now with several flowers on it!!! I believe it has not flowered any where besides in Europe a Tree Dalhia [sic] which I think will soon rival one of my Elms!! Brugmansia a large woody shrub nearly as high at the Garden Wall!!! a large Tub of the Nelumbeum luteum from Car: full [illegible deletion] of leaves 3 feet above the water. a splendid new Papaver Gar. <4> from [illegible] with such large leaves I never saw before a large plant or 2 of Musa Cavendesia <5> which I expect daily to shew flower & fruit – 3 plants of Lance’s Cactus one as high as the stove top & I should like to get one you mention as I have not the least Idea what it can me [sic]. The Mex. sand plants I have planted out in the Conservatory & are makeing [sic] immense shoots. I expect tomorrow a quita large just imported collection of orch: plants from Brazil oncedium [illegible] and another daily expected as fine a one as can be got by a person in great power on that Coast & who has sent them to a friend of mine & who has given them to me not caring for them but I now do having by chance fallen in with such a lot or lots. I think some of our Hort. friends would like to see them I am making a good Hot Bed to recieve [sic] them
I have at last got three plants up of the Gundelia Tournefortia <6>!!! & 4 large plants of Dianthus Libanotis Coming into flower –
yours sincerely
A Bourke Lambert
I [illegible] at Salisbury
on tuesday [sic] next
Notes:
1. James Burton, Jr (1788–1862), traveller and adventurer in Egypt and elsewhere, who was forced to sell his collection at Sothebys on 28 July 1836 to satisfy his debts, including his purchase of a Greek slave girl for a wife. This reference indicates a date for the present letter.
2. Probably a reference to a book on the musa or musaceae genus, which includes bananas and various fibrous plants.
3. Probably ’figured in the magazine’: illustrated in Curtis’ Botanical Magazine.
4. Papaver gariépinum, a poppy.
5. More commonly cavendishii, a dwarf banana.
6. More commonly gundelia tournefortii, reportedly the crown of thorns worn by Christ.