Glasgow.
July 25. 1825.
My dear Sir
I thank you much for the mention of Viviani’s Flora Libyca 1 & his Plantæ Corsicæ 2. I did ask you to be so good as to procure them for me: & when I did so ask you, I recalled your telling me that you had a friend 3 there, or about to be in the part of the country where they were to be obtained, & that that friend would take charge of them.
If you think therefore that these are the copies in question, be so good as to send them for me to Treuttel & Wurtz 4, and they will come by my monthly parcel.
Has Lady Charlotte Lemon 5 collected many dried plants? & is there much that is rare among them?
Trevelyan 6 has been with me twice this season & spend [sic] some days here each time. I wonder how I forgot to mention that he was with me on Ben Nevis 7, when I found the Gymnostomum Griffithianum. He is excessively keen as a Naturalist & when he went away from hence, only three weeks ago, he promised to return on his way to explore the North Highlands of Scotland, Caithness & Sutherland. A letter will I dare say still catch him at Wallington House 8.
Arnott 9 is doing great things in Botany. He has followed my advice to accompany Mr Bentham 10, [Requesen?] & [Andibest?] in an excursion among the Pyrenées, instead of spending the greater part of the summer in the Swiss Alps. Hence he has collected enormously, & though the party have probably made few new discoveries, they have a vast quantity of good things which few other parts Botanists have the opportunity of getting access to. I have heard three or four times from the party; Once from Barcelona. They have scarcely yet quitted the mountains. Gay 11, they tell me, is one of a company of Naturalists who have actually a Collector in the Pyrenées in their pay: & Gay’s collection must be, however he may make it appear to the contrary, very rich in species & in duplicates of Pyrenean rarities.
Pray let me know, with the Books, what I am in your debt for them.
I have a beautiful collection of plants just arrived from the Mauritius, another from Brazil, one from Mendoza, one from Mexico, & one from Canada –
I am, my dear Sir, very truly & faithfully yours
W. J. Hooker.
W. H. F. Talbot Esqre
Albany 12
London.
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