Glasgow,
July 7.
My dear Sir
I enclose for you a bit of Sisymbrium canescens, the best I have which is not fastened down in my Herbarium. Your probably plant not being canescent, it may prove Sis. brachycarpum. Of this all I have is glued on paper in my Herbm. I can only therefore strike off morsels which may perhaps enable you to judge if yours be the same. I enclose also morsels of the only Spergularia-tribe of Arenaria which I have from Texas. Pray let me know your opinion upon them when you have compared them. I have noted in my copy of British Flora <1> your remarks on Silene maritima & inflata & on Silene nutens.
Surely Lepigonum alludes to the scales or stipules of at the geniculations. Is not Spergulopsis exceptionable as combining 2 words, the one latin the other greek. Spergularia is certainly not a correct general name, but it is the first that was applied to this group of Arenarias & seems to be very generally adopted: – for example by Bartling, <2> Lindley <3>, Presl <4> & Auguste St Hilaire in Flora Brasilić Meridionalis <5> vol. p 175., where the Genus is fully characterized & remarks made upon it. Spergula arvensis is there referred to it, probably not correctly.
Gardener’s Mosses <6> are beautifully done upon a an [sic] 8vo book bound like a pocket-book. Every other leaf has a page ruled off into compartments, suited to the size of the species, according to the arrangement in British Flora & the names printed in lithography. The price is according to the number of species, each species being reckoned at 3d. Only one of the fullest copies now remains unsold & this I reserved for anyone that I thought would prefer it to the less complete one. It has 228 species. The others will not exceed 200, &, of them, there are now only 6. – In either case the possessor can go on filling the empty spaces himself from time to time. I am sure you will be pleased with the little book if you care to see it. Gardener himself has I hope by this time reached Brazil.
I am exceedingly obliged to Mr Strangways <7> for his generous offer of forwarding little botanical parcels to Italy etc. This is of great advantage to science & to one like myself saddled with a very large correspondence.
Faithfully Yours
W. J. Hooker
H. F. Talbot Esqre
31. Sackville Street.
Notes:
1. James Edward Smith (1759–1828), Flora Britannica, London: J. White, 1800–1804).
2. Friedrich Gottlieb Bartling (1798–1875), German botanist. Published Beiträge zur Botanik in 1824–1825.
3. Prof John Lindley (1799–1865), botanist.
4. Karel Boriwog Presl (1794–1852), Czech botanist. Published Repertorium botanicć systematicć in 1833–1834.
5. Auguste de Saint-Hilaire (1779–1853), Flora Brasilić meridionalis, 3 vols., Paris, 1825–1833. Hooker omits here the volume number.
6. George Gardner (1812–1849), Musci Britannici, or pocket herbarium of British mosses, Glasgow, lithographed by Allan & Ferguson, 1836. It was issued immediately before Gardner set out in May 1836 on a botanical expedition to Brazil.
7. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.
8. James Hunneman, London nurseryman.
9. Twopenny post.