TALBOT1406

Florence
March 21 – ¹

Dear Henry

I have just got your letter & am sorry you are not to come this way you will probably go over to Corfu in the steamboat with M^r Craufurd ² who is gone to take possession of L^d Ponsonby’s ³ place to which he succeeds – He did not consider the steam boat’s arrival as by any means certain & is gone to Foligno meaning to go that way to Ancona. if you are too late you had better take the mountains au rebours ⁴ & come here for a time – Raddi ⁵ says the Apennines contain nothing at this time of year – & it would be all trouble for nothing. I wanted to have shewn you the Environs of Florence now embellished with Tulipa Raddii & male olens [sic] (varieties of O. Solis) & Tenores ⁶ O. ⁷ exscapum – very distinct from the umbellatum – & O. minimum – which I deny to be an O– at all. Raddi & I have been planning walks to take with you – to the Impruneta, Carreggi, &c the hill coverd with Cactus humilis, the Anemones of Villa Lanzoni equal to Nice – I almost expect to hear from you on Thursday that you cannot fetch Ancona in time & will divert from your course hither I wished you to have met Buckland ⁸ here & had some thought of rendezvous<->ing with you both on the Genoese frontier near [Cassaia?], or at Pisa & making an excursion of 4 or 5 days to the Maremma beyond Leghorn in company & returning here to shew him Florence – I would have shewn you Mons^r Antoris fuci, Mons^r Rebouls Tulips & Crocuses – Giard. de Semplici – Museum the Villa Baring, La Tana, Columbaia, & every other where there is a garden – when you come back which I understand is to be in Autumn to meet the family there will be nothing – & I dare say I shall be gone I wanted to shew you M^r Brownes ⁹ journal of the Carpathians which he left me – hoping to meet you on the Nicæan or Genoese Corniche as I told him if you had time to chuse, you would certainly come that way – I sent his drawing book to England to be shewn to the Lemons ¹⁰, Jane, ¹¹ &c &c which you will have missed – Buckland was also to have told you what to look out for in Geology Pray note everything Volcanic – & pick up every petrified shell or other organic remains – The places you are principally to go to are Benizze – Gastouri – Summit of S. Salvador – & a hill of Saints of which the name is I think πεντε και δεκα. ¹²

Bring specimens & seeds which you may find now of the bushy thyme which grows under the myrtles everywhere – you will be too early for Cistus, Vitex, & that dark red long–tubed Scabiosa I never could make out & may have been a Knautia.

I send you letters to Sir F. Adam ¹³ & Cap^t Hamilton if you had come I should have made up a small packet of seeds for Sir F. who is fond of his garden & tries to introduce new trees & shrubs &c – I dare say you will find his Geranium bank most luxuriant by this time – send me over in a letter some seed of the Dolichos that covers the church instead of ivy close to his house – it is not known here. I rather depended on you for bringing me out from England some seeds &c for Savi ¹⁴ Raddi Tenore &c who are so much more liberal to me than I can be to them & some new books – which would have been instantly ordered for the G. Duke’s ¹⁵ Library – which I dare say you never saw. I do not expect to see you back soon I recommend you even to go to any part of Turkey or the Mediterranean you can get at from the islands & from Zante – Corfu or Malta there are often opportunities of going for a few days only to Albania, Morea, or Tunis, which nobody knows of at a distance & if you take to the sea, you cannot have a better introduction than to the Commodore of the Archea In that case you will pick up Kit ¹⁶ & John ¹⁷ at sea somewhere or other in the course of the summer & return to the family at Rome for the Winter I almost wish you may have to go down to Otranto by Teramo Pescara & see the wonderful M^te Gargano –

I have just rec^d from Tenore specimens of Crocus pusillus the same as what they sent me from Ab– & which I take to be a var. of that of the Cascine – also one of that fine Crocus we found at Castelamare which is either a large var of pusillus – or an embellished one of Striatus – it may be distinct. was C. speciosus of Georgia like it? collect all crocus bulbs – You sh^d have seen [John’s?] herbarium –

Write when you have any time.

Y^r aff^te
W T H F S

W. H. F. Talbot Esq^r
to the care of H. M. Consul
Ancona

W Fox Strangways