TALBOT1355

F. ¹
Jan 12. 1826

Dear Henry

Tho I wrote last post I must answer your letter & recommend your coming out to Corfu & Greece this spring – I do not mean to be here next ² – besides, with the new change of Affairs in Russia ³ we may have war in the Levant next year. I shall follow your advice about bulbs Wholesale – it is too late now as they are in full vegetation, our pale scentless cyclamens are not worth sending in lots, I sent a few by Courier – but if I was at Naples I would send loads of the spring sort. Iris tuberosa is coming up abundantly both in the turf of Boboli & walks of G. Semplici ⁴. I hope what I sent to Abbotsbury ⁵ will take. Multitudes of unknown alliums &c – of the smaller sorts which were over when I came last year – do you know Convallaria Japonica with its beautiful blue berries? & grasslike leaves?

I did not know that you had inhabited Albania ⁶ – is it on the Alban Mount or in Alba longa? The climate ought to be favorable to vegetation, tho I imagine that in the neighboring Arcadia you find nothing but artificial flowers ⁷ Speculums perhaps & Morios – I told you I had preserved two speculums & a [Ser.?] rubra in water they are now growing in pots. I had no idea they would spring so soon in England. Tell me what Orchideæ are best worth importing if I send any. I think they would go well like acorns in a solid box of earth. How are Jane’s ⁸ going on? You do not seem to have seen what I sent her by the Courier – I am intent on the Spring bulbs & mean to know them all & send some home after flowering – Tenore’s ⁹ unicolor (q. secotinus?) & præcox, two sorts I like very much & prefer to Tazetta are very fine here – yesterday I saw what may be a perfect yellow Tazzetta, or N. orientalis – it has the long green spatha of præcox – the roundish petals of Tazetta, but all yellow – stalk hardly anceps – which in præcox is strongly so – leaves glaucous as in Tazetta (in præcox dark green) & as long as the flower stalk – in unicolor the flower stalk shoots up first leaving the glaucous leaves behind. I shall make a Category of them before the end of the season. Whatever you do with the orchideæ, have a good drawing made of them when in flower. John ¹⁰ has sent a Chironia which may be your Morocco one from its size. I dare say Carolines ¹¹ Campanula is my fragilis or if different from what you saw at Abbotsbury it may be the downy pale variety which I had but it went off in a decline before flowering. I sent this summer bulbs of Allium fragrans which I would recommend for soups &c John found a beautiful little one flowered Campanula in Sicily looking like a mountain Gentian. I hope he will send me as good a Hortus ¹² from Egypt & Syria – I cant imagine why he did not send some from Greece & Asia Minor the mountains round Smyrna look very botanical. There is a Mimosa in Georgia which I suppose quite as cold in winter as Dalmatia – & the Iulibrissin you know is very hardy so is mimosa glandulosa & acanthocarpa [here?] & Farnesiana almost so tho a native of the M^ts of S. Domingo I do not know the Nepal Rhod. it must be a compagne ¹³ to the Azalia [sic] Indica which they ought to have here the others do not succeed at all. I cannot understand your refusing Martius. ¹⁴ I expect to hear again soon –

Y^r aff
W T H F S

I have a great mind to offer to go with Lord Ponsonby ¹⁵ to explore Patagonia – I hope some botanist goes out in <the?> ¹⁶ ships to survey T. del Fuego

Henry Talbot Esq^re
31 Sackville Street
London
Worthing ¹⁷