Glasgow.
June 29th
My dear Sir
Your letter of the 26th <1> reached me today & I have lost no time in sending Reid <2> word to proceed to London as fast as possible. But he cannot be in London by Saturday unless he were to travel by Mail. The first Steamer sails from Leith on Saturday, in which he will embark. On Monday he will be in London & I hope in time to see you at 31, Sackville street <3> on that day. I trust you will find him answer to his character.
You have seen some nice plants in Devonshire. The Thlaspi you allude is [sic] I doubt not Thlaspi or rather Lepidium Smithii. Vicia Bithynica is an excellent plant. Silene maritima in our garden completely changes into S. inflata.
The Arenaria I have from River Brazos <4> in Texas: & I had referred it to A. rubra, it being quite impossible to distinguish them in a dried state. If your characters are constant it might must form a distinct species But with as from Arenaria marina. But even our marina is very variable & is sometimes hardly to be recognized from rubra. These have been made into a Genus by some Botanists, & a better Genus than many others. Persoon <5> & Martius <6> call it Spergularia. Haworth <7> Stipularia & Wahlenberg <8> Lepigonum.
Your Sisymbrium from Texas is probably Sisymbrium canescens, which I have from all parts of North & South America.
Your dianthus seems to agree with D. arenarius.
Pray thank Mr Strangways <9> for his kindness in sending me the Hungarian seeds <10>
& believe me very faithfully Yours,
W. J. Hooker.
H. F. Talbot Esqre
31. Sackville st
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 03312.
2. John Reid, head gardener at Lacock Abbey. [See Doc. No: 03304].
3. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
4. It attracted a considerable number of early settlers in the state, and Washington-on-the-Brazos was where Texians declared independence from Mexico on 2 March 1836.
5. Christian Hendrik Persoon (1755–1837), botanist.
6. Dr Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868), German botanist.
7. Adrian Hardy Haworth (1767–1833), botanist and entomologist.
8. Likely to be Georg Wahlenberg (1750–1851), Swedish botanist.
9. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.
10. See Doc. No: 03280.