Hugh Davies to Thomas Pennant

5 December 1794

ID: 1312 [see the .xml file]
Identifier: WCRO CR2017 /TP20/1
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Cite: 'Hugh Davies to Thomas Pennant 5 December 1794' in Curious Travellers Digital Editions [editions.curioustravellers.ac.uk/doc/1312]

Dear Sir,

I do not delay to let you know that I have survived the dressing I underwent on Wednesday; by the continual rain my hand is blistered in holding the bridle; the current of Water at Tal y Cafn was really frightful, and no line to conduct us across the river as usual!

A tremendous gale of wind, which continued about eight and forty hours, and came on the next day after I came to Downing, has caused great losses in this neighborhood, and in some part of Anglesea; many ricks of hay have been Entirely swept away; fruit & and the trees torn up; houses unroofed &c &c I thank God by the activity of my servants and kind neighbours my little stock of hay was with difficulty saved –
O! præclarum diem1 &c is certainly an Ecphonesis or Exclamatio which are synonymous;
Concitat Ecphonesis et Exclamatio mentem,
Heu pietas!2 Salve læta dies!3 O, tempora!4 &c &c

I believe Mr. Lightfoot has noticed no plant growing near Downing besides a variety of the Anemone nemorosa;5 viz. foliis dorso punctatis,6 the leaves of which from that singularity have been mistaken for a Fern. You have the chlora perfoliata7 ^Syst. Pl: II 161 an Elegant and rather rare plant; and the following deserve notice as not common;
Lithospermum arvense, ^Syst. I. 385 Anchusa sempervirens,8 ^Syst. Pl. I. 389. Campanula latifolia,9 ^Syst Pl. 458., Phellandrum [sic] aquaticum10 ^Syst. P. I. 701. Trifolium fragiferum,11 ^Syst Pl. III. 559, Tragopogon pratense [sic]12 ^Syst. Pl. III 611., Erigeron acre,13 ^Syst Pl. III, 781 Serapias palustris14 ^Syst. Pl. IV.; and among the cryptogamous plants, with which your dingles certainly abound,15 these clame [sic] particular notice, Polypodium oreopteris Lin. Soc. Trans. I. 181.16 – Bryum Extinctorium;17 Bryum callistomam;18 Dicks. fascic. III. t. 7. f. 10. Iungermannia ciliaris;19 Lichen concentricus, Lin . Soc .Trans. II. 284.20 Lichen querneus,21 Dicks. fascic. I. p. 9. Agaricus piperatus, & deliciosus;22 Boletus suberosus23 Helvella mitra;24 Perira coccinea, Tour in Wales [...]? fig [...]?25 &c– &c–

I beg my very respectable Compliments to Mrs Pennant and am, Sir,

your most obliged & obedt. Servt.

Hugh Davies.

Aber
Decr. 5th. 1794

Thomas Pennant Esqr

Editorial notes
1. 'Oh, what a beautiful day!' See Cicero, Cato Maior de Senectute, ed. by J. G. F. Powell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 90.
2. 'An exclamatory phrase and exclamation excite the mind; Alas for piety!' Cf. 'Concitat Ecphoneses & Exclamatio mentem. | Heu pietas! ô spes falsas! prohvana [sic] voluptas!' etc. John Smith, The Mystery of Rhetorick Unveiled (10th edn., London: printed for R. Wilkin, B. Tooke, D. Midwinter et al, 1721), p. 104.
3. 'Hail, happy day!'. Ovid, Fasti, book I, 65, line 23.
4. 'Oh, what times!' quoting an oft-repeated phrase of Cicero ('O tempora o mores').
5. 'Mr. Lightfoot ... discovered in my woods, in the month of May, a variety of the anemone nemorosa, Sp. Pl. 762, with the leaves dotted on the back, like the fructifications of a polypody, precisely corresponding with the figure of a supposed Fern, recorded in Mr. Ray's Synopsis, 124, after No 24. and fig. I. tab. iii. at p. 128.' A tour in Wales (1784), I, p. 19. The 'Anemone nemorosa' is one of several species mentioned in this paragraph to which Pennant referred in HPWaH, pp. 152–3, citing the bibliographic source given by Davies in this letter in many cases.
6. 'the back of the leaves speckled'. Cf. Pennant's description in n. 5, above.
7. 'Chlora perfoliata', the 'Yellow Centaury', 'familiar ... in chalk countries, easily known by its eight yellow petals and perfoliate, or rather connate, leaves'. OED s.v. centaury, quoting a 1903 definition.
8. 'Anchusa sempervirens', 'evergreen alkanet', a plant belonging to the genus Anchusa.
9. 'Campanula latifolia', the giant bell-flower. OED s.v. bell-flower, citing an 1882 example.
10. 'Phellandrium Aquaticum', given as name for 'waterwort' in an 1807 publication. See OED s.v. waterwort, n.
11. 'Trifolium fragiferum', the 'strawberry trefoil'. OED s.v. strawberry, quoting a 1731 example. Ibid. s.v. strawberry-bearing trefoil, defines 'trifolium fragiferum as the 'strawberry clover', with a 1796 example.
12. 'Tragopogon pratensis', one of two plants known as 'goat's beards'. The genus 'Tragopogon' in later usage signifies a class of herbaceous plants with yellow or purplish dandelion-like flowers. OED.
13. 'Erigeron' is the Greek name of the Groundsel, 'because in the Spring it looketh hoarie, like an old gray beard'. OED s.v. erigeron, quoting a 1601 translation of Pliny's Hist. World. For specimens of the 'Erigeron acre' from the Linnean Collections, see here [external link] [accessed 12 August 2019].
14. See OED s.v. marsh, n.1 for 'Serapias palustris'. The definition by Lightfoot, Flora Scotica (1777), I, p. 527, is quoted: 'Marsh Helleborine ... In rough boggy pastures and marshes, but not common'.
15. Cf. Pennant on his own native Flintshire, in HPWaH, p. 153: 'The picturesque dingle Nant-y-bi abounds with what the botanists name the cryptogamous plants'.
16. The 'polypodium' is a large genus of ferns of the family Polypodiaceae. OED. For the 'Polypodium Oreopteris', see J. Dickson, 'Observations on Polypodium Oreopteris, accompanied with a Specimen from Scotland', Transactions of the Linnaean Society, I (1791), 181–2. Lighfoot's failure properly to identify this fern is noted, as is its abundance in England and Scotland, particularly the latter.
17. 'Bryum extinctorium', cited in a 1792 publication in OED s.v. burst.
18. A member of the genus 'Bryum'.
19. A member of the family Jungermanniaceæ, the Scale-mosses. OED s.v. jungermanniaceaous.
20. For Hugh Davies's published observations on the 'Lichen Concentricus', an example of which he found in Whitford parish, Flintshire, see his 'Descriptions of Four New British Lichens', Transactions of the Linnean Society, II (1794), 283–285, esp. 284.
21. 'Lichen querneus', oak lichen. Described as 'Lichen querneus of Dickson', noting that its place of growth is on the trunks of old oak trees, in T. F. Forster, Flora Tonbrigensis; or, A catalogue of plants growing wild in the neighbourhood of Tonbridge Wells, arranged according to the Linnæan system, from Sir J. E. Smith's Flora Britannica (London: printed and sold by Richard and Arthur Taylor, 1816), p. 149.
22. 'Agaricus', a Latin form for 'agaric', originally the bracket fungus Fomitopsis officinalis. OED s.v. agaric, n. and adj..
23. For Pennant's comments about the 'Boletus suberosus. Cork boletus', 'sometimes cut and shaped by the country people, and used as corks for their bottles', see HPWaH, p. 155.
24. 'Helvella mitra', the Bishop's Mitre mushroom. OED s.v. turban > turban-top.
25. Various fungi bearing as their second name 'coccinea' are listed in OED. If 'Perinea coccinea' is the example linked with an illustration in Pennant's A tour in Wales, it may be the 'Scarlet Mushroom' illustrated by Moses Griffith in ibid. (2nd edn., 1784), II, plate II. Pennant describes it as 'a scarlet kind of mushroom, unnoticed by Linnæus; but described by Mr. Ray, p. 18, No 5. of his Synopsis of British Plants. Ibid., p. 19.