WCP2609

Letter (WCP2609.2499)

[1]1

19 BUCKINGHAM STREET,

ADELPHI

LONDON, W. C.

8. VII. 1895.

Dear Mr. Wallace

I am glad to have an excuse for sending you a line. The enclosed has come to me anonymously. I hope your health continues good, and that you are able to enjoy your plants &c. At Kew2 the other day I was looking — in the Rock Garden — at some Pinguiculas3 which Mr. Baker's4 son Edmund5 has just brought back from beyond Dingle in Co. Kerry6 and got into conversation with a gentleman who I afterwards found was W. Churchill7. [2] He was spending a month at Kew. A Himalaya Lily is in magnificent blossom in the Bamboo garden — I think for the first time at Kew. I do not remember the name — but one with very broad un-lily-like looking leaves. It must be quite 8 ft high.

I need hardly say — if you should be coming to that part of the world we should be as glad as ever to see you at Richmond. I suppose we shall be away for a month from about the middle of August —

With kind regards | Yours very truly | Edward Bennett8 [signature]

A Russel Wallace Esq[uire] F R S.

1
Page numbered 298 in pencil in top RH corner. The letter bears the heading "SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH".
2
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, founded in 1840, the world's largest collection of living plants.
3
Commonly known as butterworts, a genus of carnivorous plants that use sticky, glandular leaves to trap and digest insects, in order to supplement poor mineral nutrition.
4
Baker, John Gilbert (1834-1920). English botanist who worked at Kew (see Endnote 2) for many years and was Keeper of the Herbarium from 1890-99.
5
Baker, Edmund (1864-1949). Son of John Gilbert Baker (see Endnote 3), English botanist.
6
Dingle is situated on the Atlantic coast of the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, S.W. Ireland.
7
Churchill, Winston Leonard Spencer (1874-1965). British politician, Prime Minister 1940-1945 and 1951-1955. Aged 21 years in 1895 and commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars.
8
British Museum stamp underneath.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2609.2499)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2015-04-09] Transcription checked by Benny, Ruth [2015-04-09] Transcription checked by Sherwood, Danni [2020-08-10]

Please cite as “WCP2609,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2609