Abb <1> –
Saturday
My dear Henry
I cannot reconcile myself to your flowering Mesemb. Californicum first one of my plants has been out there two years growing fast but never made a bud. So Lady Cawdor<2> has flowered Phormium tenax & Paulovnia imp– before me.
Nevertheless as you will see by Lindleys <3> & Paxtons <4> book I have grown, flowered & fruited a new thing Beschorneria yuccoides to wit.
The thermometer is 86 in the garden & it is quite still weather.
I enclose a leaf of a Piper <5> that smells like an entomological museum – it must contain some drug or condiment. Also a pretty new Veronica – & two Dianths viz. Marsicus – Tenore <6> – & Monspeliensis – somebody else. Again – Adenocarpus intermedius a very pretty late & long flowering shrub when most of the tribe are over.
As it now appears you are neither in Westmoreland Ireland or Pyrenees cannot you come here.
The terrace is golden with the shrubby Calceolaria & all other colours with Mesembs of sorts.
I am trying to grow tuberous geraniaceć out of doors, they promise well & some flower – I have lately discovered Linaria Halepensis as a weed which is a favorite of mine. Iris cupiea is flowering well in our marsh which I find an invaluable spot it is alternately pool, torrent, swamp, or dry ground. It suits Lycopodiums, Begonias, Adiantums any flag Iris, Aroideć, &c Every garden should have its swamp its rock & its wood & water.
I am here for the next ten days
Yrs aff
W F S
Cyprus nigricans is worth culture. Linum narbonense & monogynum set each other off.
[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esq
Athenćum
Pall Mall
London
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts
Notes:
1. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
2. Lady Elizabeth W Campbell, née Thynne, Lady Cawdor (1795-1866).
3. Prof John Lindley (1799–1865), botanist.
4. Sir Joseph Paxton (1801–1865), gardener and architect. He and Lindley published A Botanical Pocket Dictionary, London, 1840, the 2nd ed. of which appeared in 1849.
5. A pepper.
6. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller. [Here cited as the authority for the naming of the species of the plant.]
7. Henry Stephen Fox Strangways, 3rd Earl of Ilchester (1787–1858).
8. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.