Padua
May 6th 1823.
My dear Henry
Thank you for the Tivoli Plants & also for the trouble you had in naming the others – I have not botanized at all since we left Rome & have not seen much but by the road side tho I am sure several places would have been very productive if I had had time to hunt about. At Terni we found a very pretty Veronica which I have seen in several places since, & a yellow flowered plant which I take to be Teucrium flavum, it has rather a smell of turpentine – Mr N. <1> gathered me some of a blue coltsfoot! – do you know what that can be? The Arbor-Judæ was magnificent everywhere & the flowering Ash which I never saw before. I hope William <2> will go to Florence by the Perugia road for the sake of the Cascade at Terni, if nothing else, for I think the scenery about it most lovely and at this time of year everything is looking so fresh & full of flowers that it must be the best time to visit it. In the Valley before we got to [Strettura?] we gathered a most exquisite Silene, which I fancy I have seen some where in gardens & that it is called S. prostrata, is there such a plant & do you think it likely to be it? It grows in rocky & dry places – very much branched & very much covered with blossoms which are not large, abt the size of the S. Gallica the whole plant lies on the ground. This is I think all I have got, but grieved I am to say there are one or two others which I saw & have been longing in vain to see again, my only hope is that you may have been more fortunate. A very pretty Echium (violaceum?) grows in abundance between Nepi & Civitta [sic] Castellana & very probably in other places so I hope & trust you dried some – another plant I saw, it was the Spiræa hypericifolia or Italian May it grew in the hedges halfway between Spoleto & the next Post. Dr Smith <3> saw it there & so I fear it grows no where else on the road or he wd have mentioned it. – It looks so exactly like common May & as both you & William are so short sighted that I think it more than probable you would not observe it. It is curious from being supposed to be a Canadian Plant & yet its situation & abundance proves it to be a native of Italy. I thought I saw some one of the orchis’s [sic] which Dr S. mentions in the Appenines, but it was only in one spot & I never saw it again, I always reproach myself with not stopping [to] gather a plant the first time (as it frequently happens that after having put yourself to great inconvenience in stopping in a bad place you find it growing everywhere in places where you are obliged to stop. I long to get to a hilly Country again where I shall see new plants. Venice of course supplied me with none neither did I see any Sea weeds; it has other attractions but none that can make any amends for the want of that & the dreadful confinement. I shall direct this to Rome as I suppose you have left your direction at the Poste restante otherwise I do not know how this letter will find you as you did not give me any instructions. I shall expect a letter from you at Trente or Munich as you promised. –
Mr Nicholl desires me to say you forgot to give him the direction of the Man at Munich <4> for your Instrument but he will do what he can to hunt him out, – if you see any other person going that way you had better give them the commission to make sure. – Pray let me hear often from you as you go wandering till I see you again which will be in the Autumn I hope.
Yours aff
Jane H Nicholl
A Monsieur
Monsieur W. H. Fox Talbot
Poste restante
Roma
Padova
Maggio 6.
Notes:
1. Dr John Nicholl (1797–1853), MP.
2. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.
3. Sir James Edward Smith (1759–1828), botanist.
4. This was Traugott Lebrecht von Ertel (1777–1858), scientific instrument maker, Munich, who was constructing an instrument or machine for WHFT. [See Doc. No: 01211, Doc. No: 01077].