Abb. <1>
17 Novr 1852
My dear Henry
I send you the leaf of a very aromatic piper <2> that flourishes here I have also an aromatic peperomia but it is too succulent for a letter – you ought to have both among your sweet scented plants. Have you the Illiciums
The weather continues very perverse yet we have Cobæas in flower & other climbers – Convol. Canariensis – which I could give you – is a capital one – & Solanum jasminoides. A number of Oxalis – different sorts – are come up in due season but the rain will not let them flower. The proteas will have to scramble thro’ the winter how they can, it is too late for them to open now I fear. I have two Lomatias against a wall – L. silaifolia is a dear plant I find. The torrent has done great devastation among my little ferns & mosses &c I was getting up – I know not how they will survive the flood or the sand laid upon them by it. Can you give me a young Cantua? Is the Cyclanthera the same as Justicia Macdonaldæ? Mary <3> sent me a list of yours which I forwarded to Minterne <4> thus botanical news circulates from garden to garden. My Hedychium is only put out for the summer but I mean to leave a bit this winter, as another sp. which has not flowered, lived out last year.
I never saw a worse autumn for the beauty of the garden – pools of water & plants knocked all ways undevelopped buds unripened seeds next spring forestalled by hyacinths & bulbs of all sorts coming up – your Genoese narcissus in blow already – Have you many autumnal flowers colchicums & crocuses would do at Lacock I think. The Arbutus berries will not turn red this year, nor many others – The Brugmansia is very fine in flower but every other day comes a squall that knocks it to rags. A fine bush of Abutilon has forward buds that ought to have flowered a month ago – & now never will. My ceratipetalon was against a wall but I took it up as it is an only one. It gives all plants health putting them out to grass in the summer. The Eucalyptus buds will all be rubbed off by their own leaves before their flowering time comes.
Do you know Callitris or [Frencla]<5> cupressiformis which has been puffed as hardy? Many of the winter flowers are in bud or even out already such as Othonna, Saxifrage (pink Nepal) Hellebore <,> Azara – which I greatly recommend
Have you done anything about the garden at Nice? I begin to despair about several southern species I want I remember so many I should like to have.
I find I must send piper another time – I send some seeds instead.
Several trees of Pinus halepensis are bearing cones well – its congener P. persica does not seem disposed & I fear the trees which seem to have very weak roots & strong heads will be blown over some day before I can get a cone from them.
Lindley <6> says the inconspicua of which I sent you a bit is Pomaderris! phillyreoides, about as much like one as the other, ides <7> ought only to be applied to plants really resembling their type.
I shall be in Town the beginning of next month are you likely to come
Yr aff
W F S
[envelope:]
Henry F. Talbot Esq
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
2. Pepper.
3. Mary Thereza Talbot (1795–1861), WHFT’s cousin.
4. Minterne House, the seat of Lord Digby, and thus the married home of WHFT’s cousin Theresa Digby, daughter of the 3rd earl of Ilchester. See e.g. Doc. No: 04673.
5. Possibly Funcla.
6. Prof John Lindley (1799–1865), botanist.
7. The suffix -ides, signifying 'resembling’.