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Document number: 2846
Date: 15 Mar 1834
Recipient: HOOKER William Jackson
Author: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Collection: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Collection number: EL 6.236
Last updated: 1st May 2012

London
15th March 1834

Dear Sir

I received the plant from Sicily as Hyac. dubius, <1> and as such it has remained in my greenhouse ever since, without examination. But upon receiving your letter <2> I turned to Gussone’s flora Sicula <3> & speedily convinced myself that it is not the H. dubius, but that it is the Muscari moschatum – he quotes as a synonym of the latter H. suaveolens, Red. Lil. <4> t. 132. which I have not got to refer to.

I have abundance of Scilla Romana <5> in my garden, it is a free flowerer – I agree with Roem. & Schult. <6> in attributing much importance to the colour of the anthers as a specific character – In some genera as Anemone, Allium &c it presents much variety in different species & much constancy in the same.

But then the same may be said of the colour of the petals which tho’ a particularly bad character in some species of Anemone are a very certain character in other [illegible deletion] species. For instance the yellow colour is constant in Anemone ranunculoides, in all yellow ranunculuses except R. orientalis, in all the yellow umbelliferæ, and in Polygala flavescens, which latter plant, native of Italy, is [illegible] known by its colour and sweetscented flowers, both of which characters Linnæus <7> excludes, and beyond which I am at a loss to show any difference between it & P. vulgaris – Linnæus who seldom deserts nature has done so in this point, & it is in my opinion one of the chief mistakes he ever committed. – The shape of the leaves which he admits as a certain character is far more variable in many plants (as the Umbelliferæ) than the colour of the flowers. –

I have obtained 2 subscribers for your Bot. Journal, <8> I might perhaps be able to find some more. Would that be of any advantage to you, or only to your publisher?

Believe me, Dear Sir Yours very truly
H. F. Talbot

I have received a parcel from you but have not opened it yet, as my own parcel for Bologna <9> will not be ready till after Easter.– The Muscari is out of flower, I will send you a specimen next year –

Notes:

1. See Doc. No: 02837.

2. Doc. No: 02841.

3. Giovanni Gussone (1787–1866), Flora Sicula … (Naples: 1829).

4. Pierre Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) and others, Les liliacées (Paris: Didot, 1802–1816).

5. See Doc. No: 02841.

6. Johann Jakob Roemer and Joseph August Schultes edited and expanded Linnæus’s Systema vegetabilium between 1817 and 1830.

7. Carolus Linnæus (Carl von Linné) (1707–1778), Swedish botanist, founder of the binomial system of nomenclature and thus a seminal figure in botany. The Linnean Society, London was named in his honour. He published the Genera plantarum in 1738.

8. William Jackson Hooker, The Journal of Botany (London; Edinburgh: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman; A. & C. Black, 1834–1842).

9. See Doc. No: 02806.

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