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Document number: 1261
Date: 06 Apr 1825
Dating: postmark indistinct but WHFT was in Corfu at this time in 1826
Postmark: 13 Apr 1825
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: STRANGWAYS William Thomas Horner Fox
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 1st September 2003

Florence

April 6

Dear Henry

I am quite sorry I have to send off a Courier without a packet for you – but I have had hardly time to collect anything – & the season seems backwarder here than anywhere owing to the sterility of the soil. I find the Ashburnhams are a botanising family I am going out with Ly. A. today who has tempted me by a report of yellow tulips when in comes this Courier who will be gone before I can send a specimen of anything – there are a good many purple Coronarias here, no red. no hortensis. Double Daffodils wild in many places no single. I found one furzebush with red standards like a var. of Coronilla Emerus. There is a Sedum very like our rupestre but not it, I take it to be that which has been lately distinguished from Rupestre by Sowerby <1> under the name of Fraseri or that sort of name. There is a narrow leaved Hypericum on the walls not Coris I think – the Cascine is full of worthless primroses & good for nothing violets – not an Allium to be seen – Tuscany is certainly inferior to Nice or Naples. I hope to botanise in the course of a fortnight in the Maremma –

In an old letter of yours you mention Astrag. <2> pentaglollis – have you seeds of it – pray tell me what seeds to look out for as I have Spring & Summer & Autumn before me. Pray look in on Abbotsbury <3> in the course of the Summer & name some of the plants. I am cultivating (there) all manner of Muscari – some of the garden sorts are I think oriental – I found the true starch flavor at Nice.

I have not seen Raddi <4> – he has sent me a letter for Brazil but none for you –

Yr aff

W T H F S

I hope you will see Buckland <5> while you are in England & Scrope <6> –I enclose the Sedum – it will grow

Henry F. Talbot Esqr
31 Sackville Street

Notes:

1. Probably James Sowerby (1757–1822), artist and scientific illustrator.

2. Astragalus.

3. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.

4. Joseph (Giuseppe) Raddi (1770–1829), Italian botanist.

5. William Buckland (1784–1856), Dean of Westminster & scientist.

6. George Julius Duncombe Poulett Scrope (1797–1876), MP & scientist.

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