Florence
13 April <1>
Dear Henry
I enclose you a few seeds – I had the luck today to gather within an acre 5 of our wild tulips – a 6th within a quarter of a mile – ill luck would have it that there were no Clusianas to be seen tho I have them in the flowerpot & Gesnerianas tho in flower were absent. Two are over – Raddis <2> & my eye – they make a magnificent bouquet as you see the peasants carrying them about. Tell me which of the enclosed petals <3> you recognise for the Nice Oculus Solis – I want to estabish <sic> that point. I am sure any one of 3 if not four of ours would pass for O. Solis anywhere found singly – That stupid persoon <4> mentions none of them. Aconites are not dear & a 1000 would soon become 2000 as they encrease rapidly. The single windflower is easily encreased to any extent by seed. Scilla verna is just going to blow. Pray plant Alliums they are better in woods than a garden & multiply apace. try in Switzerland to get my favorite A. paniculatum which enlivens the rocks of the Val de Sima near Lucca late in summer & which they lost at Melbury. <5> Let me know your plans for the summer – pray import a lot of Cyclamen Europæum from the Alps.
Yr Affte
W F S
The enclosed paper will not tell you much, there is to be a new edition soon with plates –I send also some O. exscapum. <6>Henry F. Talbot Esqr
31 Sackville Street
<enclosure>
printed extract in Italian from a learned journal, Botanica. Subtitled Modificazioni ed aggiunte alle nonnullarum specierum tuliparum in agro florentino… <7> Eugenio de Reboul, Florence, 1822–1823.
Notes:
1. Although noted 1823 in a later hand, this postmark reads 1828, a more likely date, as WTHFS was Secretary of Legation in Florence at the time.
2. Tulipa Raddi.
3. 7 pressed petals enclosed.
4. C. H. Persoon (1755–1837), botanist.
5. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
6. ‘Ornithogalum exscapum’. Dried specimens enclosed with this letter.
7. Modifications and additions to various species of tulips in the countryside of Florence …