Mar 2
My dear Henry
As I have had no letters since I left Naples I do not know whether you may have written to me or not – you will at any rate like to know the success of my botanical tour. I have collected a good many plants for you & leave it to your generosity to supply Jane <1> with doubles. The season has been so late & the weather alternately so cold & rainy, as it usually is when I travel, that I have not so good a harvest as I expected. My greatest trouvailles <2> have been an <sic> nondescript-but-not-entirely-new-yet-very-rare Muscari between Lecce & Gallipoli – only one specimen to be seen & growing among thorns so that I could not get the root – Plenty of another (apparent) Muscari with 3 ciliated leaves just coming up no bud to be seen, I have a specimen of the leaves – also a linear Helianthemum not a var. of vulgare. Quercus coccifera. These may be known to you as Corfiotes. At Mte Mottola & Taranto, quantities of Junip. phœnicea – & several little plants I cannot make out. The wide heaths of the Terra d’Otranto must I am sure offer many interesting plants in the season. Cistus monspeliensis, Erica ramulosa, thymus vulgaris Phlomis fruticosa, a new, to me, Linaria with ovate leaves – abound Manfredonia is an excellent garden of botany, tho its beauties are not more than half visible just now. I found Iris pumila blue white & yellow smelling primroses. tuberosa sisyrinch: fugax in 1000s buds just above the soil, I am to have a provision sent me of them. I found also Ophrys pulla, Amaryllis lutea, Linaria 3phylla, <3> a new Adonis more crimson than the common – I went up to Monte St Angelo where it is still winter, one little plant I found on the walls of the castle I was told was Draba hesperidiflora but such name is not in Persoon <4> it looks more like Farsetia deltoides than anything else. If I am at Naples next Spring I will devote a month between April & May to the exploration of Gargano, which is quite an unknown region – & though not generally picturesque, may have some beauties in detail. New roads are making thro the peninsula & the inhabitants ridiculously hospitable – Its geology too has considerable interest – & the plains of Capitanata < text missing <5>> some good towns for headquarters – & the most beautiful turf for riding I have ever seen out of England – free from the excess of stones & weeds which the other parts of Puglia present – where one sees nothing but streets of rock mixt with tufts of Ferula, & Asphodels – luteus, ramosus & fistulosus the only 3 real species I think, the others I consider varieties. fist. might be a new genus, having a trifid stig: which has escaped Persoon. I came a difficult but not disastrous journey along the marshes, where Salsola & Salicornia abound – as also a most beautiful Lycopsis, I think vesicaria, Hypecoum procumbens, Silene canescens, Cynoglossum cheirifolium. N. Tazzetta. E. botrys. Atriplex Halimus. Eu. vegetalis?
I have been to see the Castle of Lago Pendile a very curious old place but not so much so as the Castel del Monte which is a regular Castle, rather a rare thing – in the style of circa 1100 AD. The former is irregular & modernised a little there remains however a Chapel with pointed arch zigzaged all round – & several other things Did you ever find Vicia lutea red? I flatter myself I have & as it usually is white it is not a touch more than common. I found V. tricolor near the Olivento – this will be news for Mauri. <6> I lament being too early to see Muscari ciliatum in flower, I found the ciliated leaves abundantly in many places high & low – but only detected the flowers in a white state at the bottom of the stalk.
Is not the true Helianth. salicifolium almost apetalous? Write to me.
Yr Affte
W F S.
Atella
April 6.
Henry F. Talbot Esqr
31 Sackville Street
Notes:
1. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796–1874).
2. Finds.
3. Triphylla.
4. Christian Hendrik Persoon (1755–1837), Synopsis plantarum seu Enchiridium botanicum… (Paris: 1805).
5. Text torn away under seal.
6. Ernesto Mauri (1791–1836), Italian botanist.