My dear Henry

I am surprised at hearing no more from you & so is Kit. ^<1> We suppose you are in Switzerland, which he will take in his way homewards, but will not know where to look for you. I write to London in order that this may find or follow you. Fox has brought me fine specimens of the new Linum from the Matese, to which I mean to pay a visit in the course of the summer. Bertoloni ^<2> has described it, it is between L. campanulatum & tauricum – but seems a more alpine plant – I found at Valmontone almost all we found once in the wood of Marino viz Vicia 3color, ^<3> Silene pendula, Allium pendulinum, Myosotis majuscula, O. pyrenaicum T. aquilegifolium, Lathyrus clymenum, & wild field pease white & purple in quantities. Fox says sweet pease he saw in abundance in Apulia he has brought me also a quantity of geological specimens from the the Rocca monfina, M^t Vulture, & Calabria.^<4> He found the temple of Metapontum standing & the Cyclopean walls of Bovianum capital of the Samnites – he also collected some beautiful coins. I went to Ciceros villa near Arpino^<5> & saw some beautiful scenery –

As this may follow you abroad I do not send any seeds or specimens – I will remember your commissions at Naples – Kit is delighted with Egypt & says it is the easiest country to travel in, the safest, the best climate, the most interesting in botany, geology – history &c &c – & will I suppose go there again – he says the consuls are piuttsto stupidi.^<6> Salt will be a great loss to travellers. On consulting Flora Indica I find Hedera Helix with yellow berries ^<7> a native of Nepal – which is interesting – Have you Gays answer to Bertoloni & Tenore ^<8> on Italian Crocuses? Mauri ^<9> sent it me at Rome. Do you know Cyclamen vernum grows as far north as Narni – autumnale as far south as Barbary Kit got a lot of Cyclamen roots from the marble quarries at Paros & sent them home with sundry bulbs in the Galatea I fear they will be spoilt but I told him that if they lived nothing would please you more. I have told him to visit Varese in his way home. I find one of the Linums I sent home with such care is L. usitatissimum. Kit says mummies are to be had at Cairo for 3 dollars a piece – & that the work already done is so small to what remains to be done that the country will be a mine for ages to come. I wonder you do not employ a season in a rapid eastern tour stopping nowhere short of Alexandria as you know the intermediate country well enough. Do you know a white spiked Phyteuma that grows about Vallombrosa? the M^ts there are covered with the finest Cerastium arvense I ever saw. Kit goes by Milan, Simplon, & Lausanne to Paris. I found Sedum Hispanicum near Ciceros villa & another I do not know. What a pretty thing the Iris Sisyrinchium is – About the lake of Perugia are banks completely covered with white & pink cistus, & Convol. Cantab. & the finest broom I ever saw there & near Palestrina. – The Casentino afforded me not a plant – the road very pretty – Get a lot of Saponaria ocymoides for Lacock it is one of the most chearful plants I know. I found also Linum strictum & tenuifolium – I never can find the [Cytinus?].^<10>

Y^r Aff^te
W F S

Henry F. Talbot Esq^r
31 Sackville Street
WFS

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Notes:

1. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.

2. Prof Antoine Bertoloni (1793–1868), Italian botanist.

3. Vicia tricolor.

4. Roccamonfina is a comune in Campania, northwest of Naples; Vultura an extinct volcano north of the Potenza, Basilicata region.

5. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), Roman orator and rhetorical scholar. His birthplace was Arpino, Ancient Arpinum.

6. Rather stupid.

7. William Roxburgh, Flora Indica; or Descriptions of Indian plants, edited by W. Carey (Serampore: 1820–1824). See Doc. No: 01661.

8. Jacques Étienne Gay (1768–1864), French botanist. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.

9. Ernesto Mauri (1791–1836), Italian botanist.

10. Possibly ‘Cytisius’.