Athenæum <1>
Tuesday Evg
Sept 25
My Dear Constance
I took my plant to Kew <2> today, and it was examined with much interest by Professor Oliver <3> and Mr Bentham <4> who is President of the Linnæan Society ad an old friend of mine. It was pronounced to be a new plant no plant being described in the books which accords with its characters.
They were inclined to consider the plant as being a new species of the genus Vellozia, but a difficulty arose namely that no species of Vellozia is a native of the Cape of Good Hope so that for the present the question was left undecided. It is proposed that the plant shall be figured in the Botanical Magazine, <5> the drawing to be made when it is next in good flower its present flowers being weak and few. I saw at Kew the Victoria regia in flower, its leaves are like floating round tables. There was likewise the Sacred Bean of India in seed – It is of the nature of water lilies – They had a fine plant of the Bryonopsis erythrocarpa covered with berries. We have a small plant of it in the zinc. Their plant is trained up a tall bamboo, which is a good plan, economizing space.
Your affte
Henry
Notes:
1. Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall, London: WHFT’s club; a gentleman’s club composed primarily of artists and scientists..
2. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, outside London - its Director had been WHFT's longtime friend, Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865), Prof & botanist; after his recent death, he was replaced by his son, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911).
3. Daniel Oliver (1830-1916), Keeper, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew .
4. George Bentham (1800-1884), philosopher & botanist.
5. Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, which has been published continuously since 1767. They later published the plant as Vellozia elegans, Natal Vellozia, s. 3 v. 25, 1 November 1869, Tab. 5803. Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker observed, 'our first knowlege of this plant was derived from a specimen brought from his garden by the Hon. H. Fox Talbot, F.R.S., to the Kew Herbarium, in 1866, which was raised from seed procured either from the Cape or Madagascar, which Professor Oliver prounded to be a Vellozia (identical with a Natal plant, Hypoxis barbacenioides, Harv. MSS.), and the name V. elegans was proposed for it. A specimen, presented by Mr. Fox Talbot to the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, was next exhibited to the Botanical Society of that city by my friend Professor Balfour, as Vellozia elegans (see Proc. Bot. Soc. Edinb., ix. p. 79, Jan. 1867). At a subsequent meeting (l.c. p. 1839, 13th June), Dr. Balfour again exhibited this plant as V. Talboti, or, if it should prove a new genus, Talbotia elegans. On a third occasion (l.c. p. 192, 11th July), he exhibited it as Talbotia elegans, without a generic character....'