Penrice <1>
Sunday
My dear Henry
I mean to pay you a visit in my way back to Dorsetshire but really it is no easy matter to get away from Penrice. I have so much to do & to see here & the weather is so obstinately unaccommodating that I do not know when I shall be at liberty to start – The garden has been invisible from snow till today – & now rain succeeds – besides I have Caves &c to see for Dr Buckland <2>.
They now talk of Mr Traherne <3> coming here & I do not like to go for fear of offending Charlotte. <4> In the midst of all this tell me when you go to town – why must you go so early.
I did not know I had a Leontice in my collection – I have long wished to see such a thing. Was there not Lycopsis tinctoria? a beautiful plant from the lagune of Salpi near Manfredonia–<5> from whence the I. [Sisquinelicums?] I sent here are coming on nicely.
They have succeeded in raising here Tenore’s <6> Lithospermum rosma folium – why keep you L. bullata in GH. <7> I want it to be a hardy annual. Pray make yr sisters <8> draw your plants particularly the Orchideæ Frit. Messanensis is I take it from Etna & may be a Calabrian plant also & have plenty of elevated stations – & be lutea. R. Elephas is from the woods of the Matese – above the Lake.<9> Did you find anything in Scotland?
Yr Affte
W F S
Henry
Notes:
1. Penrice Castle and Penrice House, Gower, Glamorgan, 10 mi SW of Swansea: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.
2. William Buckland (1784–1856), Dean of Westminster & scientist. As a geologist and palaeontologist, Buckland was particularly famous for fossil discoveries in caves, including Kirkdale in Yorkshire and the Red Lady of Paviland in the Gower in Wales. See Doc. No: 01035 and Doc. No: 01178.
3. Rev John Montgomerie Traherne (1788–1860), JP & author.
4. Charlotte Louisa 'Charry' Traherne, née Talbot (1800–1880), WHFT’s cousin.
5. Salpi Lagoon, near Manfredonia on the Adriatic coast of Italy.
6. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.
7. That is, greenhouse.
8. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister and Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
9. Matese mountains and Lake Matese in the central-southern Apennines of Italy.
10. Plural of ‘hortus siccus’, ‘dried garden’, that is, collections of dried plants.