Melbury <1>
2 Decr
My dear Henry
We shall be very glad to see you & Matilda <2> & Mr G. Clarke <3> whenever you like after Xmas – I hope for mild weather as you have not been here so long – you ought to see the changes that time has produced in the place.
I have some nice ferns in a moderate warm house, which suits all sorts from all climates.
We have a Benthamia in fruit here for the first time & from Abb. <4> I received a few days ago a full blown Iris alata – alias scorpioides the beautiful sweet Sicilian Iris which will hardly blow or grow away from the sea – I brought it in 1833 if not before from Italy. I never knew it so early before. A Phagianthus from Sir Charles <5> a small malvaceous shrub is also in flower.
The American oaks here bore a good many acorns this year – is it not odd some oaks have a fructificatio biennis? <6> & one Japanese seems to make it a triennial affair & I suspect some of its Indian congeners do the same – these slightly, approach the Chestnut character, while others seem an enlarged variation of Ilex
Yr affte
Wm
Notes:
1. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
2. Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter.
3. John Gilchrist-Clark (1830–1881), Scottish JP; WHFT’s son-in-law.
4. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
5. Sir Charles Lemon (1784–1868), politician & scientist; WHFT’s uncle.
6. biennial fructification [i.e. bear fruit in alternate years].