TALBOT1684

My dear Henry

I am surprised at hearing no more from you & so is Kit. ¹ We suppose you are in Switzerland, which he will take in his way homewards, but will not know where to look for you. I write to London in order that this may find or follow you. Fox has brought me fine specimens of the new Linum from the Matese, to which I mean to pay a visit in the course of the summer. Bertoloni ² has described it, it is between L. campanulatum & tauricum – but seems a more alpine plant – I found at Valmontone almost all we found once in the wood of Marino viz Vicia 3color, ³ Silene pendula, Allium pendulinum, Myosotis majuscula, O. pyrenaicum T. aquilegifolium, Lathyrus clymenum, & wild field pease white & purple in quantities. Fox says sweet pease he saw in abundance in Apulia he has brought me also a quantity of geological specimens from the the Rocca monfina, M^t Vulture, & Calabria.⁴ He found the temple of Metapontum standing & the Cyclopean walls of Bovianum capital of the Samnites – he also collected some beautiful coins. I went to Ciceros villa near Arpino⁵ & saw some beautiful scenery –

As this may follow you abroad I do not send any seeds or specimens – I will remember your commissions at Naples – Kit is delighted with Egypt & says it is the easiest country to travel in, the safest, the best climate, the most interesting in botany, geology – history &c &c – & will I suppose go there again – he says the consuls are piuttsto stupidi.⁶ Salt will be a great loss to travellers. On consulting Flora Indica I find Hedera Helix with yellow berries ⁷ a native of Nepal – which is interesting – Have you Gays answer to Bertoloni & Tenore ⁸ on Italian Crocuses? Mauri ⁹ sent it me at Rome. Do you know Cyclamen vernum grows as far north as Narni – autumnale as far south as Barbary Kit got a lot of Cyclamen roots from the marble quarries at Paros & sent them home with sundry bulbs in the Galatea I fear they will be spoilt but I told him that if they lived nothing would please you more. I have told him to visit Varese in his way home. I find one of the Linums I sent home with such care is L. usitatissimum. Kit says mummies are to be had at Cairo for 3 dollars a piece – & that the work already done is so small to what remains to be done that the country will be a mine for ages to come. I wonder you do not employ a season in a rapid eastern tour stopping nowhere short of Alexandria as you know the intermediate country well enough. Do you know a white spiked Phyteuma that grows about Vallombrosa? the M^ts there are covered with the finest Cerastium arvense I ever saw. Kit goes by Milan, Simplon, & Lausanne to Paris. I found Sedum Hispanicum near Ciceros villa & another I do not know. What a pretty thing the Iris Sisyrinchium is – About the lake of Perugia are banks completely covered with white & pink cistus, & Convol. Cantab. & the finest broom I ever saw there & near Palestrina. – The Casentino afforded me not a plant – the road very pretty – Get a lot of Saponaria ocymoides for Lacock it is one of the most chearful plants I know. I found also Linum strictum & tenuifolium – I never can find the [Cytinus?].¹⁰

Y^r Aff^te
W F S

Henry F. Talbot Esq^r
31 Sackville Street
WFS