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Document number: 2050
Date: 09 Sep 1830
Recipient: TREVELYAN Walter Calverley
Author: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Collection: Univ of Newcastle Upon Tyne Robinson Library Trevelyan Family Papers
Collection number: WCT 237
Last updated: 27th January 2013

Leamington Warwickshire
9 September 1830

Dear Trevelyan

I regret extremely that it will be out of my power to visit you in Northumberland this year, owing to the numerous engagements which I have in the South; but I hope I shall have that pleasure next year.

I have almost left off botanizing in England, it is so difficult to find anything new; but the other day my attention was arrested by a very tall plant five or six feet high which I had never seen before, growing in profusion in a ditch. I had great trouble in finding the name of it: it was the Cacalia suaveolens, <1> a native of N. America, & therefore I presume at some period the offcast of a garden.

I intend some day to publish in the Linnæan Transactions <2> the new plants I discovered in the Ionian Islands, some of which are shewy. I was only 5 weeks in those islands, occupied great part of the time with other affairs than natural history, nevertheless I made an interesting collection. I don’t believe any botanist except Olivier <3> ever set foot on those shores, at least I am certain there exist there great numbers of undescribed species – In one spot where I landed in Cefalonia & gathered a few plants, being in a great hurry, what I gathered turn out to be almost every one nondescript. which is a proof that they have been hitherto wholly unexamined – Had I leisure to return there, it would interest me very much; but I am afraid that will never be any more. Corfu is without exception the most beautiful picturesque island I ever beheld: if it was only a little nearer England, how frequented it would be by tourists. The pencil of Claude <4> alone could do justice to its scenery –

I remain, Dear Trevelyan, Yours ever truly
Henry Fox Talbot

W. C. Trevelyan Esq.
Wallington
Northumberland

Notes:

1. Cacalia suaveolens L. (sweet-scented Indian-plantain) grows in both Northern and Southern American States.

2. The Transactions of the Linnean Society, London

3. Guillaume-Antoine Olivier (1756–1814), took part in an expedition to Persia in 1792, during which he crossed the Aegean twice.

4. Claude Lorrain, French painter ( ca.1602–1682).

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