TALBOT196

Penrice ¹
Sunday

My dear Henry

I mean to pay you a visit in my way back to Dorsetshire but really it is no easy matter to get away from Penrice. I have so much to do & to see here & the weather is so obstinately unaccommodating that I do not know when I shall be at liberty to start – The garden has been invisible from snow till today – & now rain succeeds – besides I have Caves &c to see for D^r Buckland ².

They now talk of M^r Traherne ³ coming here & I do not like to go for fear of offending Charlotte. ⁴ In the midst of all this tell me when you go to town – why must you go so early.

I did not know I had a Leontice in my collection – I have long wished to see such a thing. Was there not Lycopsis tinctoria? a beautiful plant from the lagune of Salpi near Manfredonia–^<5> from whence the I. [Sisquinelicums?] I sent here are coming on nicely.

They have succeeded in raising here Tenore’s ⁵ Lithospermum rosma folium – why keep you L. bullata in GH. ⁶ I want it to be a hardy annual. Pray make y^r sisters ⁷ draw your plants particularly the Orchideæ Frit. Messanensis is I take it from Etna & may be a Calabrian plant also & have plenty of elevated stations – & be lutea. R. Elephas is from the woods of the Matese – above the Lake.⁸ Did you find anything in Scotland?

Y^r Aff^te
W F S

We want you much, looking over old horti sicci ⁹ – I find my Old Russian Primula is really longifolia & the Aster I think acris

Henry