Sidmouth
7th May 1836
Dear Sir
I regret that the opportunity did not occur <1> of your becoming acquainted with Strangways <2> & I hope your next visit to London will be somewhat longer in duration – At length Spring has returned, yesterday & today the weather was splendid & sun without a cloud. I noticed the Horse Chesnut and Lilac in flower, and Lychnis dioica, which I suppose is near a month later than usual. A day or two ago I gathered Narcissus poëticus in flower in a meadow apparently wild at Moreton, <3> Dorsetshire – Is the Aucuba Japonica considered rare in fruit? I found some seemingly ripe in a shrubbery, from which I think some male plants might be raised, since it is said only the female is known in England: – The work on Mosses <4> you mention must be interesting, my memory of them wants refreshing very much. What is the one I enclose? which I gathered today sine fructu, <5> & therefore do not remember its name. Is it a Bryum?
Mr Watson <6> I believe you are acquainted with who has lately published a Botanists’ Guide: If he wishes for any more habitats, I can send him a considerable number – Perhaps you will mention it to him in case he means to publish his Supplement.
I saw a fine white Epimedium in flower at a nurserygarden near London last week Not diphyllum I think, for if I recollect there was a plurality of leaves much resembling in shape those of E. alpinum.
I think Mr Watson has admitted into his Bot. Guide too many common plants. For instance Euphorbia amygdaloides is as common in the Southern Counties as primroses or violets in all the woods – So is his fśtidissima in Devon, Dorset, Wilts.
Believe me Yours very truly,
H. F. Talbot
1836 London May eleven W F. Strangways
Sir W. Hooker <8>
Glasgow
Notes:
1. This is the reply to Doc. No: 03275.
2. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.
3. Moreton, Dorset: home of the Frampton family.
4. George Gardner (1812–1849), Musci Britannici, or pocket herbarium of British mosses, Glasgow, lithographed by Allan & Ferguson, 1836.
5. Without fruit.
6. Hewett Cottrell Watson, The New Botanist's Guide to the Localities of the rarer Plants of Britain; on the Plan of Turner and R Dillwyn's Botanist's Guide, v. 1 (London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1835); a 2nd volume was published in 1837.
7. See Doc. No: 03223.
8. Hooker was created a knight of Hanover in 1836.