My dear Henry
I am amazed at finding you still here, I was looking out for you on the railroad between Liège & Malines & thinking you would miss me at Frankfort. Any letter sent there under cover to me would be forwarded hither without delay – Whenever you go, if you pass thro’ Frankfort at all, enquire for Mr Kuper the Chargé d’Aff. who will render you all aid & assistance in my name. I pity your missing a glimpse of an Italian spring, & the opportunity of herborizing in Alpibus. <1>
Lady I. <2> is I am happy to say going on well, & in good & cheerful spirits – & takes great pleasure in the bouquets John <3> & I bring in to her from field or garden. The storm last week did infinite mischief to the young green shoots of shrubs & trees & destroyed the beauty of many for the whole season – Our flowering Ashes are entirely cut off –
The last two winters seem to have been mild, judging from what they have spared – a shower of rain would bring everything on now faster than a day’s sunshine. However we have plenty of Mesembs. among others the odd spinosum in flower – Crassula jasminiflora almost out – a profusion of Pancratium illyricum which is a very fine plant, & sows itself – lots of Geranium tuberosum & a pretty pale lilac one I cannot make out, but suppose to be a variety of aconitifolium – Libertia formosa & grandiflora – Cytisus Weldeni very handsome & powerfully fragrant. Clematis montana in its accustomed beauty. Irises – especially Florentina – & a dark one from Lisbon & twenty others – Tree peonies – & other peonies unnamed – Muscari commutatum & a distinct & fine var. of botryoides from Armenia – bright sky blue. Mattia umbellata – Deutzia virgata – Tulips sine fine <4> – in particular Michael Angelo’s Tulip from his villa at Florence – Allium triquetrum, pendulinum, Siculum, Bertolonii, magicum, nigrum, roseum, scorzoneræfolium – and another – out or just coming. Two standard Camellias, one copiously, in flower. Saponaria Ocymoides Mathiola tricuspidata, Sisyrinchium bermudiana, Cistus villosus, Azalea sinensis white & purple Iberis semperflorens, Campanula muralis, Robinia grandiflora – Amygdalus incana, Ornithog. montanum, Silene decumbens &c It is curious that Orn. adriaticum (mihi) <5> of which I have a great deal, is not yet near in flower, tho’ its next congener, exscapum, is long over. I have your Arum tenuifoli[um]<6> but it never flowers. Can you give me a bit of Euphorbia spinosa I never could raise it here. I have Tenore’s <7> biglandulosa to compare with myrsinites they seem very near. We have two or three Ixias flowering (for the 3d time) on terrace much more brilliantly than in any Greenhouse.
Remember me to Martius <8> – it would be a good opportunity to ask him if he can spare me a plant of the so called Yucca graminifolia which is lost at Chelsea – or of the Fourcroya longera said to be a mountain plant of Mexico – If not too early to distinguish Gentians, you might bring a clod from the neighbourhood of Munich in which should be some plants of G. ciliata, the only way I can think of bringing that stubborn plant to England.
Yr Aff
W F S
If you stay a day at Frankfort ask Kuper to introduce you to some of the few philosophers of the town – Major Panhuys[?], Dr Ruppell, <10> Mr Herman Meyer, Mr Schnyder, & Mr Durch, are those I know best.
I have a fine Anemone alpina in blow –
Henry F. Talbot Esqr
31 Sackville Street <11>
London
Notes:
1. In the Alps.
2. Juliana Maria Strangways, née Digby (d. 1842).
3. John George Charles Fox Strangways (1803–1859), MP.
4. Without end.
5. To me, that is, in my view.
6. Written off the edge of page.
7. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.
8. Dr Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868), German botanist.
9. Prof John Lindley (1799–1865), botanist.
10. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
11. Wilhelm Peter Eduard Simon Rüppell (1794–1884), naturalist and astronomer.