Glasgow
June 15. 1833

My dear Sir

I ought to have thanked you ere this for more than one kind communication: but I have now my lectures to engage me in addition to my other employments, & two days in the week I have to go to the coast ^<1> to pass a few hours with my family.

I did not however accept of your offer of the Fern, ^<2> because I do not like to rob you of a scarce plant, nor to break up any portion of your very nice collection of Brazilian species ^<3>. If there chance to be two specimens, then I will accept one; & if it is too large for a frank it may be left with Hunneman ^<4>.

I had never seen Sedum hexapetalum till you sent it to me. It is however figured in the Bot^l Magazine ^<5> & in the Register ^<6> too; though under another name, that of S. cæruleum, of Vahl. In the former work at t. 2224; in the latter at t. 520. It is also the S. azureum of Desfontaines ^<7>.

I almost despair of finding a Bookseller for my Miscellany ^<8> though I offer all my labor for nothing. It is too bad that our country cannot maintain a respectable botanical Journal.

Most faithfully Yours
W. J. Hooker.

P.S. I hope you received a figure & description of the Arabis ^<9> from Curtis ^<10> for your friend: as I desired him to send it. If not write to him at Glazenwood, by Coggeshall & say how he had best send it to you. Perhaps in a frank, neatly folded twice.

H. F. Talbot Esq^re M.P.
29. Albemarle street ^<11>
London.

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Notes:

1. The letter is postmarked Helensburgh, an attractive small ‘watering-place’ on the north shore of the Firth of Clyde, twenty-five miles northwest of Glasgow.

2. See Doc. No: 02686.

3. See Doc. No: 02674.

4. James Hunneman, London nurseryman.

5. William Jackson Hooker and Samuel Curtis, Curtis’s botanical magazine …, a new edition (London: S. Curtis, and Sherwood, Gilbert & Piper).

6. Edward’s botanical register … consisting of coloured figures of plants cultivated in British gardens, accompanied by their history … (London: J. Ridgway; text by J. B. Ker-Gawler, 1815–1828, and by Prof John Lindley (1799–1865), botanist, 1829–1847). The Register was started by the botanical illustrator Sydenham Teak Edwards (1769?–1819).

7. René Louiche Desfontaines (1750–1833), French botanist, author of Flora Atlantica … (1798).

8. William Jackson Hooker, Botanical miscellany… (London: J. Murray, 1830–1833). [See also Doc. No: 02607].

9. See Doc. No: 02674.

10. Samuel Curtis (1779–1860), proprietor of the Botanical Magazine.

11. WHFT lived at this London address, just down the street from the Royal Institution, for half of April and the whole of May, 1833.