from Don having described one of them, P. sphwrostachyum, 
from very imperfect specimens, under three names. Of 
these species, P. viviparwm, which is probably only an 
Alpine and Arctic state of P. Bistorta, L., may be known 
by its solitary habit and slender spike, with pink suberect 
or spreading flowers. P. paleacewm, which has not been 
‘introduced into cultivation, is a much larger plant, with a 
dense oblong spike of pink flowers like those of P. viviparum; 
it is very near indeed to P. Bistorta. P. affine is well figured 
in this work (Plate 6472); it has a creeping tufted habit, 
and pink flowers like those of P. viviparum. P. sphero- 
stachyum differs from all these in the dense broad cylindric 
or globose spike of blood-red pendulous flowers; it is by” 
far the most beautiful of all as to flowers, though it never _ 
forms the great patches that P. affine does, and which 
latter may now be seen in perfection at Sir W. Armstrong’s 
seat (Cragside) in Northumberland, clothing many hundreds 
of square yards of rocky slopes with a most brilliant 
autumnal mantle of scarlet, from the colour of the fading 
leaves. 
I am indebted to the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, for 
the specimens of P. spherostachywm here figured, which 
were raised from seeds sent by Mr. Duthie from Saha- 
runpore, and which flowered in June of the present year. 
It abounds in the Alpine and sub-Alpine regions of the 
whole Himalaya, at elevations of 11,000 to 15,000 feet. 
Plants of it, also received from Edinburgh, are still 
(October 20th) in full flower in the rock garden at Kew. 
Descr. Rootstock tuberous; stem solitary, erect, leafy, 
four to ten inches high. Leaves three to five inches long, 
Iinear, linear-oblong or -lanceolate, acute, crispidly crenulate, 
glabrous and glaucous or pubescent beneath, radical petioled, 
cauline sessile ; stipules tubular, lax or close, very variable. 
Spike one to one and a half inch long, globose or cylindric ; 
flowers one-third of an inch long, pendulous, blood-red. 
Sepals oblong, obtuse. Stamens eight, the four longer 
_ exserted or included; anthers small, black. Ovary three- 
_ gonous; styles three, more or less united below; stigmas 
.  dand 5, anthers; 6, ovary :—all enlarged. 
capitellate.—J. D. H. 
__ Fig. 1, Estivation of flower; 2, flower ; 3, perianth laid open, and stamens; 
