Yarmouth.
Decr 15th 1816
My dear Sir
Your letter of the 10th <1> has been forwarded to me hither & I am happy to find by it that your affection for the Mosses still continues & particularly that you have some specimens which you wish me to determine for you. You cannot send them to me too soon for that purpose, as my friend Dr Taylor <2> has lately come over from Ireland in order that we may complete our Muscologia <3> together & we are working here, where we have the advantage of Mr Turner’s <4> rich Herbarium. Several of our plates are done & our MS is in a very forward state. One of two of the former I should like to send you if you could find any forward friend to whom I might send it under cover for you. When I last wrote to you we had by no means determined upon what Genera we should adopt. Our Tabula is now completed & contains Andræa, Sphagnum, Phascum, Schistostega, Anictangium, Gymnostomum, Diphyscium, Tetraphis, Splachnum, Polytrichum, Cinclidotus, Tortula, Encalypta, Grimmia, Pterogonium, Weissia, Dicranum, Trichostomum, Leucodon (Pter. Sciuroides) Didymodon, Funaria, Orthotrichum, Daltonia (containing Neckera heteromalla & Neckera splachnoides both [illegible] calyptra) Neckera, Fontinalis, Buxbaumia, Bartramia, Hookeria, Hypnum, & Bryum. Thus you see Meesia, Diplocomium & Pohlia have melted into Bryum & Leskea into Hypnum. In the latter Genus we have been obliged to reduce the number of species considerably & even in the Genus Phascum recent observations on P. strictum have convinced us it is only a small dark variety of P. axillare.
You do not say if you have seen my friend Mr Dalton <5> who has been expecting the pleasure of your company at Croft while you staid in Yorkshire <6>. If your leisure should allow you & your inclination lead you to come into my part of the country I should be very happy to see you & talk about Mosses with you at Halesworth, where I shall be returned in rather less than three weeks.
Unfortunately my Flora Londinensis <7> keeps me more at home than any of my occupations & I have no expectation of being in town before the spring, if then.
Pray direct anything you may have for me at Dawson Turner’s Esqre Yarmouth. If by Coach – the Yarmouth Telegraph, White Horse Fetter Lane.
I beg you will offer my Compliments to Lady Elizabeth Feilding <8>
Yours dear Sir Very truly & faithfully
W. J. Hooker.
W. H. F. Talbot Esqre
31. Sackville street
London.
Notes:
1. Letter not located.
2. Thomas Taylor (d. 1848), MD.
3. William Jackson Hooker and Thomas Taylor, Muscologia Britannica: containing the mosses of Great Britain and Ireland… (London: Longman, Hurst etc, 1818).
4. Dawson Turner (1775–1858), botanist, author & banker.
5. Rev James Dalton (1764–1843), botanist.
6. At Castleford, Yorkshire, 10 mi SE of Leeds, where WHFT went to school from 1815-1816.
7. William Curtis (1746–1799), Flora Londinensis, containing a history of the plants indigenous to Great Britain… (London: G. Graves, 1817–1828), volumes 4 and 5 by William Jackson Hooker.
8. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.