Feb 27
My dear Henry
Tho you do not deserve it I write to you again to beg you will distinctly say what you have done with my plants which were sent seven or eight months ago <1> & of which I have never heard one syllable –
I have lately got the catalogue of the Madrid garden<2> wch contains many new genera as Diecratium Ferdinanda Villanova Demetria Lasiospermum &c & a fern called Havea cordifolia do you know any of them – those marked with an asterisk are to be exchanged so any one sending a collection of northern seeds will receive southern for them, which is very proper. Do you know the [Basicratium?] humili? I have sent a number of new seeds to Oxford astragali salsola polycnemum &c from Tartary & Georgia & duplicates to Mel Abbotsbury <3> & duplicates if I have them will not go near you till you write more to me
Do you ever see Mr Salisbury? <4> how do his plans for naturalizing foreign plants go on? I intend to try some experiments in the country this year I have also another list which I mean to send to the Crimea in a day or two as I have established a communication with that country. I imagine there is no country so near that is so rich [in]<5> plants as the Southeast of Russia the Crimea Caucasus & Steppes – the very lists make ones mouth water. If you come abroad I recommend it to your attention here & at Moscow are some very good botanists tho’ I have been very unlucky in not knowing one or two. Biberstein, <6> Grandidier,<7> the two Fischers,<8> Stephani,<9> Baron de Vietinghoff.<10> Ct Bray <11> & Ct G. Razoumovsky <12> are people you would like very much & I never saw flowers so beautifully dried.
Yr Aff
W T H F S.
W. H. F. Talbot Esqr
Notes:
1. They had arrived in Oct 1817. [See Doc. No: 00781].
2. Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid, founded in 1755.
3. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
4. Possibly Richard Anthony Salisbury (1761–1829).
5. Written off the edge of page.
6. Friedrich August, Freiherr Marschall von Bieberstein (1768–1826). Author of the Flora taurico-caucasica. [See Doc. No: 01099].
7. Abbe de Grandidier, official at the St Petersburg Imperial Public Library.
8. Johann Gotthelf Fischer von Waldheim (1773-1853), Professor of Natural History at Moscow University. Friedrich Ernst Ludwig von Fischer (1782-1854), botanist, Director of the St. Petersburg Botanical Gardens 1823-1850. See Doc. No: 00790.
9. Possibly Stéphanie-Félicité du Crest de Saint-Aubin, Comtesse de Genlis (1746-1830), writer and educator, who wrote about botanists.
10. Baron Christian Burchard von Vietinghoff or Vietinghoff Scheel (1767-1828), Russian Counsellor, naturalist.
11. François Gabriel, comte de Bray (1765–1832). [See Doc. No: 01246].
12. Count Grigory Razumovsky (1759–1837), younger brother of Count Alexy Razoumovsky (1748-1822), whose private gardens at his Gorinka estate were well known. See also Doc. No: 00796.