TALBOT1069

Florence ¹

March 28

My dear Henry

I arrived here last night & as I have a day to write before the post goes I must give you an account of my travels – You have I suppose got my letter from Nice – I staid there two days & was delighted with the beauty of the Country, one of the charms on which I do not think you insisted half enough – The Lemons ² stay there till the beginning of April & then go to Genoa where they will look for Chariessas ³ instead of me who had not time to go there. I went one day to Vintimiglia & back which everybody says is finer than anything between that & Noli – & then proceeded over the Col de Tende skipd Turin & came by Bologna – &c –

You will wonder at this sudden change – hear my reasons – M. La Croix ⁴ & others told me you must have made a false calculation & that nobody could go the distance in the time you laid down – which of course did not include botanising – Time being a great object with me I went the road I could travel by night in preference to one which I could not – & saved 36 or 40 hours by it – have seen the best part of the Coast – the Col de Tende, & Parma – Bologna I leave for another time as I must go that way whether I leave this by Simplon<,> Splugen or Venice – besides I saw at Nice that the season was so arriérée ⁵ I should find very few plants – On the road to Ventimiglia I found but two plants new to me & those very sparing Cistus Albidus & Hesperis Africana – In the Gorge of La Ghiandola only Primula inodora mihi ⁶ – which I found also on the Apennines between this & Bologna with Crocus vernus. With Nice, Naples & Constan. ⁷ we have now 5 very distinct habitats for it – was yours at Vienne ⁸ odorous or not? I am very glad I have seen the Col de Tende tho in so bad a season – I shall never pass it again if I can help, but if ever I am a spring at Nice I will visit it. La Ghiandola would be a fine station for me – it combines every advantage – it has the most sublime scenery, Painting botany & Geology might go hand in hand & never be at a loss for employment. I should like to follow the river down to the Sea – where the road ought to go & you would avoid Rowse & Browse ⁹ which latter must have been named by the goats a non browsando, ¹⁰ for I never saw such a hungry looking mountain any where I think Rowse a degree better – & the valley of Lascarena, & the very remarkable gorge just above it, pleased me much – Altogether the Scenery is more Apennine than Alpine, & the vegetation & cultivation so méridionale, ¹¹ so full of evergreens, that except the Chestnut groves near Tenda, I think I missed little in point of natural beauty, but flowers – numbers of orchidea were coming up in the watermeadows, leaves dark on the outside, silvery within – In mid summer I suppose even Rowse & Browse are covered with flowers that do not require a terre grasse ¹² –

I found snow from the top of the Col down to Limone, 2 feet deep & here & there on the road to near Coni – the North of Italy lookd more like Flanders or Essex with a grey sky & raw east wind & rain & snow accompanied me to the top of the hills between Bologna & Florence – which is by far the poorest part of Italy I have seen, great part is just like a Welch moor – I found a hellebore new to me – & quantities of double Daffodil in a field where they were rooted out as < illegible ¹³> The Anemones at Nice do not shew we<ll?> this year – The hostenas I think inferior to Naples – I saw a fine Pavonina in a garden & some Oculus Solis – they are both magnificent flowers – & plenty of Antirrhinum latifolium which I found at Ceva in the end of May – no Allium but album. Statice hirsute not out. Coris not out. Gladiolus not so forward as in our gardens, Euphorbia Nicæensis, dendroides, & spinosa. There is a portable garden made of <carob?>wood w^ch is to bring home everything – I have sent to Raddi ¹⁴ but am quite ashamed to bring him nothing my self nor from you or Hooker ¹⁵ – do you know Campan ¹⁶ Nicæensis – I took a plant from a rock on Browse but it is defunct or missing – does Sedum hirsutum grow there? & another like this what is it? <illustration> – It is hot enough for summer in the streets here & I expect to begin botanising very soon, but the wind is so cold & the country so dry that I am in hopes I cannot have lost much.

Y^rs aff

W T H F S

I saw a large syngenesious plant (i.e. dead stalk as large as a China aster up to the top of the Col. is it a Doronicum?

Henry F. Talbot Esq^r
31 Sackville Street
London