Abbotsbury <1>
Thursday Jan 2d <2>
My dear Henry
I am sorry I cannot accept your invitation just now, but hope to see you in town the end of next month, & if you have time to visit some gardens with you – Here we are as if in Italy – we have 3 or 4 Ac. <3> lophanthas 12 ft high standard & full of flower – this morning I gathered 2 Irises (pumila & tuberosa) 3 Alliums, album, triquetrum, & chamæmoly, Muscari racemosum & moschatum, Hyacinths single white & blue, Daphne collina, Rhodod. Dauricum – Cytisus 3florus, <4> Sollya heterophylla 2 Clematis, calycina & cirrhosa in abundance, Cyclamen Coum & Persicum, Vestia lycioides, Anemone hortensis pavonina & coronaria, Linum arboreum, 6 Narcissus paper, soleil d’or, præcox, italicus, & double tazetta & Pseudo Narcissus minor – Erodium Hymenodes, Arabis, Aubrietia deltoidea vera, Cistus incanus, 2 Coronillas, Iberis, Crocus vernus, versicolor, Imperati, albiflorus, pusillus, cloth of gold, luteus, Oxalis purpurea & variabilis Cheiranthus mutabilis, Pyrus japonica, Cratægus Indica, Jasminum revolutum, Anagallis Monelli & grandiflora, Primula sinensis, Erica – unknown – carnea – Pittosporum Tobira, Medicago, Cineraria populifolia & petasites cum multis alliis <5> &c &c. In a day or two there will be plenty of Ornithog – nanum or exscapum & byzantinum mihi <6> in flower – O. nutans is already out at Maiden Newton. <7>
The new rockwork on the terrace is become a perfect wilderness – I lighted today on 2 or 3 little Seedling sedums without name or tally, which I immediately recognised as Gussone’s <8> S. littoreum which I had found exactly in the same state of vegetation two springs ago on the rocks of Salerno, & took home & saved the seed – it is annual & I shall try to get it drawn when in flower – it has already passed one generation here as last years skeleton attests.
Do you know the singular Sedum amplixicaule? I have a good deal of it. There are several Mesembs in flower still on the terrace among which inclaudens is invaluable as however gloomy the sky, it cannot shut day or night. I have a fine sturdy bush of Euphorbia dendroides, raised at Lacock. Do you want any of the Neapolitan Characias now found to be a distinct species? it is very good for Shrubberies & I could give you a lot. Unless you had a confederate at Bath I do not know how to send you anything.
We expect Sir C. Lemon <9> the beginning of Feby – & the Mundys <10> – In the Greenhouse we have several nice plants a beautiful Epacris, Kennedias red & blue. Lithosp. rosmarinifolium, Genista linifolia a fine Swainsonia, Prim Palinuri two Hungarian new Hellebores – & several interesting things not yet in blow Euonymus nanus, Prim venusta, carniolica, the new lilac from Transylvania, Daphne Australis, Rhod. chamæcistus, Campanula garganica, & muralis from Dalmatia to be compared – C. dichotoma of Sicily – Acacia farnesiana, a lot of Cacti, Crocus suaveolens, Lachenalia pendula, Sternbergia colchiciflora, Colchinum arenarium & Bivonæ & Byzantinum Campa infundibulum, Cytisus Æolicus, dianthus Siculus, Stapelia Europea – Scilla amethystina – Ophrys tenthredinifea [sic] Orchis undulata.
Have you any Poterium spinosum, Arabis collina, Euphorbia Spinosa, Dianthus Bisignani or other rarities to spare as mine have failed. Let me hear from you again. did you find anything from me in No 31? <11>
Yr affte
W F S
Henry F. Talbot Esq MP <12>
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Acacia.
2. 1834, during WHFT’s time in Parliament.
3. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
4. Triflorus.
5. With many others.
6. ‘To me’, that its, in my opinion… what I call byzantinum.
7. The Rev the Hon Charles Strangways (1761–November 1836), brother of the 2nd Earl of Ilchester, was rector of Maiden Newton, Dorset.
8. Giovanni Gussone (1787–1866), botanist.
9. Sir Charles Lemon (1784–1868), politician & scientist; WHFT’s uncle.
10. William Mundy (1801-1877), politician, WHFT's brother-in-law; and his wife, Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.
11. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
12. WHFT was elected MP in December 1832 and left Parliament with the election of January 1835.