TALBOT2450

My dear Henry

I send you (to read) two little works of Tenore's ¹ - which when you have done with, pray send to the Hort. Soc.

Pray account for some plants in pots in my room, having been left dry as a bone all summer, shooting out now (never having been watered) they are, Orchis undulata, Colchicum Bivonæ a muscari, & (after watering) a tiny Ophiogloss lusitanicum which makes me hope those I sent you may have shot forth equally. Tenore says his Crocus received from Fischer ² is C. speciosus, & very pretty it is - flowering entirely naked may it not be nudiflorus? it is blue with yellow mouth, petals this shape [illustration] & veined - no smell, stigma much divided bulb membranaceous almost like the spring one biflorus pusillus &c. I now think I know all the Crocus & Colchicums well C. Thomasii is more like vernus than any of the Autumnals I know, smells strong of saffron, & its flowers are more cupshaped than the others - leaves ciliated - C. longiflorus is the prettiest of all the Autumnals & flowers so much more abundantly than C. Sativus that the peasants collected the saffron from it for the markets - C. medius & secotinus, & even nudiflorus ought to be at Abb. ³ but I do not know them well.

I sent you various packets some time ago which I hope came safe - I now think I know the various Colchica, when I see them, no easy matter I assure you. I saw C. Cupani from Sicily & montanum from Genoa in flower this autumn together in horto ⁴ the first is almost white & usually narrow leaved, the other lively pink & broad leaved, two good varieties. C. Bivonæ is usually pale chequerflowered, narrow leaves rising soon after the flower, not so immediately as the great C. Persicum - but not waiting for spring - leaves diverge like those of an Orchis.

I am delighted to find you have made acquaintance with Niemcewicz ⁵ & C^t Zamoyski ⁶ I hope they will settle & enjoy some repose in England at last. I mean to be in England at Xmas, till when adieu -

Y^r aff^te
W F S