London
9 Augt
My dear Henry
I meant to have answered your letter before & now we are on the point of starting not for Pyrenees but for Alps, I must not delay my thanks for your congratulations. <1> I hope you are better than when you wrote to me.
I was at Abby <2> last week & found I had just missed the Natal lily in flower the Gardener said it it [sic] was very handsome. I find two or three of the Brunsvigias very hardy. B. Josephinæ (what an odd jumble of two rival dynasties! <3>) has flowered with me out of doors. Agave Virginica (which is but a make-believe Agave – on a par with Dracæna borealis) is preparing to do so likewise. It is herbaceous, deciduous, not very aloe-like, more like a tuberose or an Asphodel – The Japan Oak Q. glabra is in flower & from its white stamina has a more conspicuous flower than any oak I know. It might pass for a Proteacea. Q. reticulata of Mexico is bearing actual acorns & Pinus tuberculata cones.
You heard I suppose of Harriets <4> accident in London she writes a better account of herself from Markeaton. <5>
I was stupid not to bring home bulbs of the Pyrenean Pinguicula – I shall be too late for it in the Alps – Its companion Saxifraga hirta sows itself on damp mossy walls at Abb – & I fancy I could naturalize the Pinguicula, once placed there in the same way. Pray try some experiments your old walls must be damp enough.
Bagnéres de Bigorre was so hot in June I could only get up the hill over the town – but Flora was not bright – I saw no bulbs anywhere – but the poetic N. <6> Is there a Flora des Pyrenées? tell me when I come back where Lilio hyacinth may be found another year – & when.
I am cultivating halfhardy ferns – some live & some die – but they grow magnificently while they last Cyathea dealbata, Balantium Culcita, the Allantodias, Cystomium falcatum & several hardy N. American ferns are well worthy cultivation out of doors – you could grow many if you lighten the soil a little –
Yr aff
W F S
Notes:
1. WTHFS took the family by surprise [see Doc. No: 07416] by marrying Sophia Penelope Sheffield, on 21 July 1857. See Doc. No: 07410 for mention of his returning ‹soon’, and apparently unexpectedly, from the Pyrenees.
2. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
3. [ Brunsvigia: of Brunswick]. The Duke of Brunswick had led an army of invasion into revolutionary France in 1792. Josephine was the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte.
4. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.
5. Markeaton Hall, Derbyshire, NW of Derby: home of the Mundy family.
6. Narcissus.