TALBOT3312

Lacock
June 26^th 1836

Dear Sir

I think Reid ¹ had better meet me in London on Saturday or Monday, at N^o 31 Sackville Street ² –

During my Devonshire tour I saw several interesting plants, the purple & white Melittis in the hedges, the Sibthorpiæ Europææ &c. There is a plant exceedingly common there which looks like Thlaspi campestre but is perennial – I think it must be Lepidium Smithii – Vicia bithynica I found in abundance at Exmouth.

Silene maritima is very plentiful & I think certainly a different species from S. inflata – Hottonia palustris is very common near Taunton in Somersetshire. I mentioned to you last year that I had raised one of the Texas plants from seeds picked out of the specimen ³ – It seeded freely again & I have now abundance of it – It is an Arenaria related to A. marina of our English seacoasts. I procured the latter last autumn from the Isle of Wight in order to cultivate the 2 plants together in my greenhouse, and I found several points of difference between them, viz.

Arenaria marina	the Texas plant
perennial?	annual
flowers open in all weather (closing only in the evening)	flowers only open in very light sunshine
Stamina 10	stamina generally 2 or 3 rarely 5
flowers petals uniform purple exceeding the calyx	flowers petals white & purple, long as the calyx

I conceive these 2 plants to form a genus very distinct from Arenaria which may be named Spergulopsis – Can you refer to [illegible deletion] this plant in your Texas herbarium, & see whether you have given it any name?

I have now succeeded in raising a second Texas plant of which I have six or eight specimens in flower at the present moment. It is apparently a species of Sisymbrium the leaves are elegantly cut, petals small, greenishyellow [sic], pedicel of the fruit refracted, silique rather short for the genus – If you like to cultivate these 2 plants I will save you some seed of them.

I have great tufts in my garden of the enclosed pink, do you think it is the D. arenarius of Willdenow? ⁴ It is a very desirable species for the garden –

Believe me Yours very truly
H. F. Talbot

The Hungarian seeds ⁵ you received lately were sent by M^r Strangways. ⁶ –

London June twenty seven 1836 W. F. Strangways
Sir W. Hooker
Glasgow