Lacock Saturday Feb. 22
My Dear Constance
I received today Yours of the 17th.
The showy flower in your letter of the 11th which grows like an Aloe, the edges of its leaves like the teeth of a saw, appears to be Blandfordia Nobilis, a native of Australia
The climber with yellow flowers and leaves like ivy, seems to be a Cacalia (a genus very near akin to groundsel) but I never saw the plant before. The plant named by mistake Heberstreitia appears to be Habrothamnus purpureus a Mexican or South American plant. We used to have it at Lacock. In the gardens at Cannes it is common. The red flower with fleshy leaves, which Ela painted, seems to be an Echeveria, one of the Stonecrop Tribe. Our snowdrops are now very beautiful, the weather being warm and pleasant they have expanded fully. We have little else except yellow Crocusses and Aconites – But in the stove we have a magnificent specimen of an Orchid, the Lælia superbiens, which the vicar gave me a year or two ago and Wilkins has most successfully cultivated – The stalk is some feet long & curved down at the end by the weight of the flowers which are purple with a dash of yellow – horticulturists should come any number of miles to look at it.
The paper today mentions the death of the Dowager Lady Glasgow,<1> whom you knew at Edinburgh, and that of a Son of the late Mr Grosett,<2> & the account adds that he was the only one left of the family. I remember to have seen a whole lot of children, on day that I called on Mr Grosett at the Abbey. I direct to San Remo because as yet you have given me no other address
Love to all – Your affte
Henry
Notes:
1. Julia, née Sinclair, Countess Dowager of Glasgow (1796- 19 Feb 1868).
2. Frederick Rock Spencer Grosett (1818- 17 Feb 1868), son of John Rock Grosett (1783-1866), MP; Jamaican Parliament; occupant of Lacock Abbey. until summer 1827.