[fragment]

I am grieved however to hear that the place which most excited my curiosity is without the sphere of their labours – the pratum amœnissimum ad fluvium Volkhoff ^<1> – Sobolevskys ^<2> never failing repertorium of strange & unheard of plants – I expect a great deal from this association from what I know of the principal supporters of it. Pray mention it to any Ortolans ^<3> you see in Italy who may be likely to contribute for they say they are rather behind hand in Southern correspondence The Neapolitan seeds I sent to the Crimea having arrived in Petersburg two months ago have a better chance of flourishing on the Black Sea than those I am taking sero sed serio ^<4> to England – they may be planted & up perhaps by this time write to me in London & let me know where you are to be found –

Y^r Aff
W T H F S

What is a Veronica with white sessile flowers veined with blue? on Subappenine hills in Piedmont? The thing like a Hemerocallis ^<5> on y^e M^t Cenis must be Veratrum nigrum in its minorityThe thermometer is 11º½ in a close room nearly what it was on M^t Cenis. Prescott’s ^<6> last discoveries at Petersb^g are O. notulata which may truly be called vagans, Ophrys monophyllos – Carex B.baumii ^<7> – [Scripus cærpitonas?] Drosera longifolia – Ajuga reptans & some [illegible] Schæni &c
Look out in Switzerland or Germany for the 2 first vols of Flora Taurico Caucasica ^<8> I can give you a spare copy of the supplementum

[address panel:]
Italy
W. H. F. Talbot Esq^r
Poste restante
Milan

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Notes:

1. The most delightful meadows by the river Volkhoff, east of St Petersburg.

2. See Doc. No: 00334.

3. ‘Ortolani’, that is, ‘gardeners’.

4. Late but in earnest.

5. See Doc. No: 01083.

6. Possibly John D Prescott (d. 1837 in Petrograd). A collector in Russia, he was a correspondent of Prof John Lindley (1799–1865), botanist, and Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785–1865), Prof & botanist.

7. Carex Buxbaumii.

8. Friedrich August, Freiherr Marschall von Bieberstein (1768–1826), Flora taurico-caucasica… (Charkov: 1808, 1819).