Dear Henry

One of your Vicias is lutea var purpurascens that in your letter hybrida M^r Anderson ^<1> calls your white Veronica circæoides which is not a bad name. One of the handsomest wild ones is latifolia. Do you know the handsome Scophularia mellifera?

They tell me there are many Scilla hyacinthoides & Ornithogalum Arabicum this year flowering at Abb. ^<2> Iris fimbriata is rare too out of doors & Pancratium illyricum remarkably fine

When are you coming. Tineo & Gasparini maintain the A. ciliatum of Naples to be different from the subhirsutum of Sicily.^<3> Who shall know them all?

Why do bubbles on a cup of tea attract one another it cannot be by reason of their density, for the greater the bubble the emptier it is.

Y^r Aff
W F S

Is muscari giganteum & macrocarpon the same? Any seeds of your Italian wild plants will be well bestowed on M^r Anderson
I hear C V. ^<4> is going to Abbotsbury

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Notes:

1. Probably William Anderson (1766–1846), curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden.

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

3. Prof Vincenzo Tineo (1791–1856), Italian botanist, director of the botanical garden and professor of botany at Palermo. [See Doc. No: 00276]. Guglielmo Gasparini (1804-1866), Prof of Botany at Naples. A Ciliatum and Subhirsutum = Allium.

4. Caroline Valletort, that is Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.