16 



getting every thing in order for the Royal Guest, 

 and that your politeness hurried you so (juiek away, 

 that you seemed not to have even thought of the 

 plants, — which was a pity, for your road to Wake- 

 field being under the terrace wall, at the end of 

 which are the conservatory and green-houses, you 

 might have stepped in there without being in the 

 way at all (though perhaps Henderson the gardener 

 might be in a bustle like all the rest). I regret it 

 the more, because I should so much have liked your 

 account of the plants, which were all duplicates of 

 the collection at Wimbledon (which I have here) ; 

 and the finest plants were always sent to Went- 

 worth : how T ever, I hope whenever you pass that 

 road again you will call and see all. 



Without disfiguring the Aralia I could not send 

 a specimen fine enough for a drawing ; therefore I 

 have had Sow T erby here, and have also set him to 

 make a drawing of a size he never did before, which 

 is both extravagant and perhaps ridiculous ; but 

 really the plant has flowered in such magnitude, 

 and is so very beautiful an object, that I could not 

 resist having it done the size of life. I send you in 

 the box one of the eight flowers, which are all at this 

 moment in full perfection, two rising rather higher 

 at the top, and the other six round them in the form 

 of an umbrella. It is w r hat hitherto has been called 

 the Pancratium amboinensis, but I never had one 

 flower before in this immense dimension (though 

 very fine); the fragrance of it is prodigious, exactly 

 like the Cactus grandiflor a. The circumference of 

 the umbrella which the Pancratium makes is a yard 



