Melbury <1>
April 14
Dear Henry
Pray give me a little account of your tour your two letters followed each other so closely that they did not give me much variety
Several of my Italian importations are flowering here very well now viz Ornithogalum exscapum O. pyramidale not yet out but looks very different from Narbonense Tulipa Raddi in great beauty quite as fine as at Florence T. prζcox from Naples seems only a dwarf variety Oculus Solis & all the others in bud or very forward I will send you petals of each fresh Narcissus odorus & incomparabilis single very pretty The brilliancy of Pseudo Narcissus in some fields here where it is as thick as if sown strikes me as equal to any shew of wild flowers I know The Neapolitan Crocus pusillus flowered very well the Florentines all failed one from John <2> seems a delicate variety of that of Castelamare <3> Primula Palinuri beautiful ditto P. nivalis & marginata we have a tall var. of nivalis among some auriculas from Holland some call it a var of villosa Erica arborea is in fine flower at Abbotsbury <4> I wonder it is not more cultivated it has a Cape look O. arabicum <5> stood the winter well
Yr Affte
W F S
W. H. Talbot Esqe
Notes:
1. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
2. John George Charles Fox Strangways (18031859), MP.
3. possibly Castelamare di Stabia, on the Bay of Naples.
4. Abbotsbury, Dorset, home of WTHFS.
5. Ornithogalum arabicum.