Lacock
April 20th 1860
My Dear Charles
I was much interested by your letter <1> – I have just been out in the garden, your musk mallow is coming up strong & Wilkins <2> is going to pot the seedlings, 1 in a pot. He says your Tiger Lilies out of doors Ribes and Laburnam plants are “all right.”
I enclose some seed of Anomatheca Cruenta just ripened in our stove. It is a very useful ornamental plant and succeeds easily in a store, leaves like grass, flowers crimson stars.
I send a flower of a curious Fuchsia which I regard as a quite distinct species. It is a native of the summit of the Volcano of Xetuch in Mexico.
The yellow star Bethlehem is very rare – I shd like very much to have some roots of it if the rats have spared any.
The Lathrća squamaria, Toothwort is not common It is parasitical & therefore I presume difficult to Cultivate here, but I should like to try it.
There is a plant that grows nowhere in England but in Upper Teesdale, the Gentiana Verna – do you think you could find that?
I should like to have a genuine wild British specimen. I enclose a bit of a rare wild British plant Asarum Europćum. Does that grow at Whorlton? It is not common in any part of England.
The bit enclosed will show you what it is like – I am afraid not a word can be said in favour of its flowers.
Where did you get the seeds of the musk mallow?
I have not time to finish this letter tonight so will write again in a day or two –
Your affte
Papa
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 08080.
2. George Wilkins (b. 1814), gardener at Lacock.