3 Augt–
Dear Henry
Major Laing <1> is arrived at Timbuctoo & Capt Clapperton <2> I believe at Sockatoo <3> – we hear this from the Consul at Tripoli whose daughter he married just before he started – I have had a letter from Mr Lysons <4> at St Gall. he says he saw all thro Bavaria the summer sweetscented cyclamen which I found in Austria & Tenore <5> in Carinthia & which we all three agree in thinking different from the spring one of Naples & Rome he is not quite satisfied whether it is the same he found on the Apennines with the Autumnal one which you call Europæum a name more properly belonging to the German sort & which would leave Neapolitanum to one of the Autumnal if they are really distinct – he saw Rosa integrifolia at Count Rizzi’s at Venice – it ought to be a new genus – also Adonis flammea & miniata & Chamæcistus & chamæbuxus var flor purpureis. Dr Kane <6> & I botanise a great deal he has a good eye & admires Decandolle <7> – I cannot follow Decandolle in his Lathyri &c – he makes too many & I suspect angustifolius tenuifolius cornutus or alatus which we have here [to be?] <8> no other than Clymencium Articulatus belongs to the same suite but is distinct – so is Ochrus Pray go to Ab. <9> this summer I have just received from it Anthericum annuum & Orobus atropurpureus an interesting little plant. Send me no seeds nor anything in your letter because I think of going away soon I do not know where exactly or when – I am unable to find seed of Chironia maritima. Do you know Allium flavum the red one I found last year at Lucca is I suspect A. paniculatum.
Yr Aff
W T F S
Henry Talbot Esqr
31 Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. Alexander Gordon Laing (1793–1826), African traveller who attempted to find the source of the Niger. He married Emma Maria Warrington, daughter of the British consul at Tripoli, in July 1825.
2. Hugh Clapperton (1788–1827), African explorer.
3. Modern Sekota, Ethiopia.
4. See Doc. No: 01983.
5. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.
6. See Doc. No: 01450.
7. Augustin Pyramus (or Pyrame) de Candolle (1778-1841), Swiss botanist.
8. Text torn away under seal.
9. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.