London
12th Feb. 1834
Dear Sir
I think I shall send my packet to Bertoloni <1> about Easter, through the Foreign Office <2> – It will go round by Vienna – If you please I will send yours along with it: there can be no doubt I think of its safe arrival, at any rate it will stand the same chance as my own – It has long been a subject of regret with me that there exists no safe & expeditious method of transmitting from one part of Europe to another communications of a purely scientific character, not involving any pecuniary transactions – It appears to me that the different scientific Academies, Institutes, and Societies might be privileged to send a parcel once a month or oftener, which should not be opened at any douane, <3> & charged only a moderate rate of postage – Any member of the Society <4> might thus send a package to any member of the corresponding society, it having been first opened by the Council to see that it contains nothing of a nature foreign to the objects of the society, but merely matters of science & natural history – If you agree with me, in thinking this feasible & desirable, & I should be glad to petition the H. of Commons on the subject – A few good scientific names would be all that was wanted to attach to it, I would present it, & get it printed – we should not succeed the first year, nobody ever does, but I have little doubt we might in 3 or 4 years, if the different Scientific Societies should take up the idea –
I think Bertoloni wd rather receive European plants than Exotic tho’ of course he wd not contemn the latter, because all his thoughts are at present engaged on his Flora Italica <5> of which 4 Nos have appeared which perhaps you have seen – If you have not I can offer you a duplicate copy which I possess of them. What he particularly wants is positively authentic specimens of such species as are controverted – He is the best botanist they have in Italy, Tenore <6> is led away by the vanity of making new names – Bertoloni admits no species into his Italian flora of which he has received no specimen but not content with this he goes the absurd length of admitting no habitat of any species unless he has a specimen from that locality. Thus for Cneorum tricoccum he says “ Hab. in insulâ Monte Cristo’. <7> Whence one would imagine that it did not occur on the mainland of Italy anywhere – whereas it is abundant at Mentone Villafranca, Nice, & all that neighbourhood –
As you mention a wish to have South European plants <8> I forget whether I ever gave you any specimens from the Ionian Islands – I discovered several new Species there in 1826 – I regret to observe that I have lost the opportunity of publishing some of them, the french scientific commission having since discovered them in the Morea – Have you see their work? <9> Their 1st plate Veronica Chamædryoides represents a plant I discovered in Corfu & named V. pseudo Chamædrys, the coincidence of the names proves their justness – I found a plant in the same island which I named with an unusual specific name: I called it Silene integripetala <10> – Now is it not remarkable that the frenchmen should have hit upon the same name? But their figure represents a plant [some]what <11> different from mine, apparently a diffe[rent species]: so that it seems Nature has pla[ced a pa]rticular tribe of the genus Silene in the Gr[ecian] islands – I am glad to find that a remarkable plant which I have named Silene Cephallenica <12> has escaped their scrutiny & remains to be published – I should be glad to receive the 2 new collections you mention, of N. Orleans & Texas plants. <13>– I picked some bulbs of Allium Canadense <14> off a specimen in the N. Orleans collection which I received last year, & have now 3 or 4 flourishing plants of it – I don’t know whether it is rare in our gardens, at any rate I never saw the flowers of it.
Yours ever truly Believe me
H. F. Talbot
1834 London February thirteen H. F. Talbot
Professor W. J. Hooker
University
Glasgow
Notes:
1. Prof Antoine Bertoloni (1793–1868), Italian botanist.
2. Through William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.
3. Customs-house.
4. Linnean Society, London.
5. Antonio Bertoloni, Flora Italica … (Bologna: R. Masio, 1833–1854).
6. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.
7. Habitat on the Island of Monte Cristo
8. See Doc. No: 02798.
9. See Doc. No: 02823.
10. See Doc. No: 02630.
11. Text obscured under seal.
12. See Doc. No: 02630.
13. See Doc. No: 02798.
14. See Doc. No: 02603 and Doc. No: 02607.
15. William Jackson Hooker, The Journal of Botany (London; Edinburgh: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman; A. & C. Black, 1834–1842).