Florence
Nov 24 1825
Dear Henry
I was very much surprised you did not write to me soon after you had been at Boyton, <1> I hope you were worthy of the Pines & Coniferæ & saw the Bermuda cedar Dianthus fruticosus, Theophrasta, & two Louisiana Cacti which appear to be just analogous to Cactus humilis of this country of which I have sent 4 leaves to Jane <2> & which I hope you will see growing in M. Square. <3> Next week I hope to have a letter from you at Abbotsbury: <4> but it is a pity you always contrive to be there at the worst time of year – you will see neither Dianthus squarrosus, Campanula fragilis, or any of the Neapolitan bulbs – I do not wonder that Cosmos 2pinnatus <5> is spoilt by being drawn up in a hothouse, here where it is a late annual it is very pretty.
Pray come out here in March – you will however pass the Alps at a bad season & trying a new pass in Winter is a loss of time, so I suppose you will come as usual by the Corniche Which way will you go? to Ancona or by Naples & Otranto? By all means see Corfu in May, it must be quite Arcadia & I hope you may find means of seeing Albania and Greece. You should see Sicily too some time or other – the Maltese Flora I take to be but small. Cerastium Maritinum comes from Selva or bosco del Mantico or some such name in Lombardy You know we have heard of John <6> from Modon <7> & believe he is now in Egypt – but I expect him in the winter by any ship of war that comes round to Naples or Leghorn – he may wait sometime for an opportunity. Saverio <8> is now in quarantine at Leghorn with loads of things I hope bulbs & seeds may be among them.
There is in Corfu a bushy thyme which grows under the Myrtles as they do under the olive woods, Tenore <9> from a bad specimen said he thought it was Satureia Thymbra but what is called so here is very different – but names are very incorrect all over Italy. It has pink, white or purple flowers in bunches or spikes so close they look like punches at the end of every branch & is extremely fragrant, I want the name & seeds of the plant for it would be a very pretty thing in our gardens. If you go, pray bring out a few seeds of flowers, or more particularly trees & shrubs that would suit this Climate, for Sir F. Adam <10> is very fond of gardening & has a very pretty garden of his own & is introducing trees &c to be planted all about the Island – Botany bay & Cape plants & those of Carolina &c or Mexico & China or Japan would flourish in Corfu & Zante. I have entered into correspondence with Viviani <11> & Savi <12> – V. is going to send a copy of his Sp. Flo. Libya <13> to Mr Lambert <14> by Mr Dawson Turner <15> or some other zealous English botanical traveller. S. has sent me a packet of seeds which I rely on more for correctness of names than any from another. I think he is an exact man. Did you see Viv’s Libyan specimens themselves [?]<16> You say nothing of my Chariessa bulbocodioides – it cannot be yours because it has been covered with snow this month past as I can see from the Ponte Trinità. Yours I imagine is from hot sandy shores, & mine from peaty alpine lawns I hope the bulbs of it I am going to send to Melbury <17> will do. I think Chironia fruticosa is an old inhabitant of our G. house it is very pretty & if found in the North of Africa, is one of the very few plants common to both ends of that Continent.
Philipea is among Vivianis African plants – this Oxalis so like a Cape plant I suspect must be foreign – as in the South of Europe they establish themselves so rapidly – & they have some decidedly introduced plants. Cactus – Agave &c – When Jacquin <18> published his Oxalis O. compressa had not flowered in Europe – nor is it now common in Northern G. h-s <19> but it happend [sic] to be among some Ly. Liston <20> took to Constple & I found it a weed in the garden with O. cernua & Nicotiana undulata. O. cernua you remember quite common at Naples & O. caprina. Is the Roman Lathyrus, tuberosus? coccineus? or setifolius? L. Rotundifolius of the Crimea is between latifolius & tuberosus which latter in that country is so much finer & redder than in our gardens that perhaps rotundif is a hybrid. My Antirrhinum Alpinum came only from Mr Selwyn <21> did you see his [illegible] grandiflorus? Mine was A. odoratum which never came up.
Yr Aff
W T H F S
Henry Talbot Esqr
31 Sackville Street
London
Moreton <22>
Dorchester – Dorset
Notes:
1. The home of A.B. Lambert [see below]. [See Doc. No: 01309].
2. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796–1874).
3. Montagu Square, the London home of Jane Nicholl and her husband. [See Doc. No: 01160].
4. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
5. Bipinnatus.
6. John George Charles Fox Strangways (1803–1859), MP.
7. Modern Methoni, on the southwestern coast of Greece.
8. Saverio Levota, a manservant or courier employed from time to time by members of the Strangways and Talbot families while on the Continent. He had been with John Strangways in the Mediterranean. [See Doc. No: 01333].
9. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.
10. Sir Frederick Adam (1781–1853), Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Isles 1824–1831.
11. Prof Domenico Viviani (1772–1840), Italian botanist.
12. Gaetano Savi (1769–1844).
13. Domenico Viviani (1772–1840), Floræ libicæ specimen … (Genoa: Pagano, 1824).
14. Aylmer Bourke Lambert (1761–1842), botanist.
15. Dawson Turner (1775–1858), botanist, author & banker.
16. Written off the edge of page.
17. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
18. Prof Joseph Franz Frieherr von Jacquin (1766–1839), Austrian botanist.
19. Greenhouses.
20. See Doc. No: 00285, and Doc. No: 08331.
21. Rev Townshend Selwyn (1783–1853), botanist & Canon of Gloucester.
22. Readdressed in another hand.