Naples
16 Jan^y 1829

My dear Henry

I enclose the Scheme of a lottery to be drawn at Florence in the course of a month – I have marked which are the pictures best worth having, as I examined them when there – I will receive ten tickets that is eleven as one is given gratis, for you, if you like – if not I will add them to what I have taken on my own account – the tickets I have set apart for you, to prevent mistakes, are numbered as follows:

		Cartella <1>			Progressivo <2>
		No59			No 2		Lady E <3>
		59			8
		59			9		Mr F <4>
		57			12
11.		59	Amandier <5>		17
tickets		59	Caroline <6>		15		Price of 10 tickets 4– florins each fl.40 = £2. 10. 0 or something less
		59			20
		59	Horatia <7>		28
		58			62		I will secure your prizes with mine.
		58	Henry		31
		58			90		11th gratis

I wish I had thought before of asking you to send me a packet of common garden crocus roots of two or three sorts – they seem quite unknown here – I mean the yellow – the scotch –(ie the large var. of Tenore’s ^<8> pusillus) & the new dwarf ones – the Susianus – sulphureus &c – I do not think Bertoloni ^<9> has made out the genus with his usual acumen. Mauri ^<10> writes me word he will make a collection of seeds for you this winter & send it here – What I now send is from the Villa Bisignano whose gardener is a very deserving man & if you can send me any seeds I shall bestow them in part upon him. Tenores new Colchicum is really a remarkable plant, flower as large as the great C. Bivonæ of Sicily – leaves quite different – & not following the flower immediately – as in C. B. the genus now stands according to me as on the other side.

Colchicum		autumnale (nudum o v sp	Europe
		variegatum do v v c[?]	Levant?
		Bivonæ <11> (foliosum) v v c[?]	Sicily
Possibly large	{	Tenorii (new) nudum v v c[?]	K. of Naples
& small var. of one sp.		Neapolitanum do v v c[?]	Castellamare
		Alpinum ([illegible] parvulum Ten <12>–) [illegible] v v sp[?]	Apennines
		Montanum (foliosum) v v sp[?]	Genoa
		+ arenarium v v sicc[?] <13>	Hungary

Adieu write to me soon

Y^r Aff
W F S

Pray engage C. & H. ^<14> to draw your new plants as they appear specially orchideæ, for once gone you may not see them again.

I have routed out a good many tolerable pictures but they are so dear I cannot buy –

Pray tell me your opinion about the frescoes ^<15> I want to have lithographed –

Kit ^<16> is not come yet

Get if you can Cestrum glaberrianum a pretty shrub flowers in Winter

Henry Talbot Esq^r
31 Sackville Street
London

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Notes:

1. Ticket.

2. He means the ‘progressive order’.

3. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.

4. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.

5. See Doc. No: 01670.

6. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].

7. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.

8. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.

9. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.

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

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

12. There are two types of Colchicum: one has leaves at time of flowering (foliosum, that is, leafy) and the other has leaves that develop after flowering (nudum, that is, naked). C. Bivonae which is labelled here as ‘foliosum’ is actually a naked species, but this could possibly be WHFT’s error.

13. Tenore.

14. This is possibly a reference to habitat, siccus suggesting growth in a dry place (confirmed by the name ‘arenarius’, which means ‘of sandy places’).

15. Caroline and Horatia.

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