Florence
April 6
Dear Henry
I am quite sorry I have to send off a Courier without a packet for you – but I have had hardly time to collect anything – & the season seems backwarder here than anywhere owing to the sterility of the soil. I find the Ashburnhams are a botanising family I am going out with Ly. A. today who has tempted me by a report of yellow tulips when in comes this Courier who will be gone before I can send a specimen of anything – there are a good many purple Coronarias here, no red. no hortensis. Double Daffodils wild in many places no single. I found one furzebush with red standards like a var. of Coronilla Emerus. There is a Sedum very like our rupestre but not it, I take it to be that which has been lately distinguished from Rupestre by Sowerby <1> under the name of Fraseri or that sort of name. There is a narrow leaved Hypericum on the walls not Coris I think – the Cascine is full of worthless primroses & good for nothing violets – not an Allium to be seen – Tuscany is certainly inferior to Nice or Naples. I hope to botanise in the course of a fortnight in the Maremma –
In an old letter of yours you mention Astrag. <2> pentaglollis – have you seeds of it – pray tell me what seeds to look out for as I have Spring & Summer & Autumn before me. Pray look in on Abbotsbury <3> in the course of the Summer & name some of the plants. I am cultivating (there) all manner of Muscari – some of the garden sorts are I think oriental – I found the true starch flavor at Nice.
I have not seen Raddi <4> – he has sent me a letter for Brazil but none for you –
Yr aff
W T H F S
I hope you will see Buckland <5> while you are in England & Scrope <6> –I enclose the Sedum – it will growHenry F. Talbot Esqr
31 Sackville Street
Notes:
1. Probably James Sowerby (1757–1822), artist and scientific illustrator.
2. Astragalus.
3. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
4. Joseph (Giuseppe) Raddi (1770–1829), Italian botanist.
5. William Buckland (1784–1856), Dean of Westminster & scientist.
6. George Julius Duncombe Poulett Scrope (1797–1876), MP & scientist.