Abb^{y <1>}
14 July

Dear Henry

I hope this may find you at Lacock, & at leisure to give me some account of your rapid trip. You must have seen the Alps in great beauty in the fine warm weather in June. If I had thought of it I would have asked you to bring me a turf or clod from some Alpine pasture ^<2> to take my chance what strange or uncultivable Gentians, Androsaces, Orchis, &c it might have produced. I have always longed to see Gentiana ciliata & others in my garden. Did you see Martius? ^<3> what has he in hand now? Did you hear anything of Bertoloni, ^<4> or why his Flora Italica ^<5> is come to a pause with the 3^d volume.

A summer at Abb^y. is such a novelty to me that I am full of astonishment at the things I see in the garden. My Arum tenuifolium flowered suddenly just after you went – what a strange thing it is. Among other things I have had flowering beautifully Amaryllis vittata, Villarnia exaltata, in the fountain pool, Libertia grandiflora & formosa Melaleuca thymifolia, Pancratium Illyricum & now maritimum nearly out, Reaumuria, Oleander in great beauty, Olive covered with flower & very sweet, Crinum Capense, Iris Sisyrinchium, [sabbiflora?], flavescens &Monnieri, Virginian Poke, Alstromeria aurea, a variety of interesting hardy bulbs, Mesembryanthema as usual – I cannot find their names with any certainty – Silene fruticosa has been very fine – & Dianthus marsicus & atrorubens & a host of others unamed. I find two very good Calceolarias much hardier than the rest & live out, viz – rugosa, & dark red velvety one. Adenocarpus intermedias from Roncigli [illegible] is in flower –Anthyllis Hermanniæ, Campanula fragilis & muralis, Sedum roseum, scores of Acanthus in flower Trachelium cæruleum, Fuchsias &c adorn the terrace –

In the Greenhouse we have magnificent Crassulas, Mammillarias, Kennedias & Taxonias

For the first time we have Bosea Gerva[mora?] coming to flower profusely – a panicled Spiræa something like sorbifolia 8 feet high Euonymus nanus in fruit, Allium moly, flavum, rotundum (or sphærocephalum) Etna broom like a shower of Gold, Arbutus Andrachne in fruit, Phyteuma violæfolia, Yucca flaccida, Dianthus monspeliensis, Genista nervosa, Dianella cærulea & alba, Rohdea japonica, Aspidium spinulosum, lobatum, Goldicanam, Struthiopteris Germanium Rephrodium Acrostichorides, Rubus hirtus, Cyclamen Europæum, Campanula Grosseckii Sedum Lividum, Fuchsia discolor a fine species, Deutzia, a large flowered Mexican Philadelphus Cytisus Weldeni, & others now over. Statice Limonium, Echinus, bellidifolia, Smithii, [illegible] are there all. –

Yr Aff
W F S

Pray tell me why when you look through a telescope at a star or planet, it whisks about like a grig or young eel, or rather like a squib or cracker. I cannot keep them still – I suppose it is refraction, but it is the same every night.

L^y I. ^<6> is going on very well.

Do you know Camp. cæspitosa? what I have from Vienna seed seems little but a variety of C. pumila – what I found for cæspitosa in Styria is different & a marked species –

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Notes:

1. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.

2. See Doc. No: 04504.

3. Dr Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868), German botanist.

4. Prof Antoine Bertoloni (1793–1868), Italian botanist.

5. Antonio Bertoloni (1775–1869), Flora Italica … (Bologna: 1833–1854).

6. Juliana Maria Strangways, née Digby (d. 1842).