and have a strongly reticulated surface, and the petioles 

 are often red; the umbels are loose or dense-flowered, 

 and the flowers in our garden specimens are of a far deeper 

 purple than is usual in denticulata. 



P. capitata differs greatly in habit from both the above ; 

 it is confined to the Eastern Himalaya, has finely denticulate 

 leaves, often snow-white with meal beneath, but some- 

 times not so, a tall also mealy scape and globose densely 

 crowded head of sessile flowers which open slowly, and 

 the uppermost unexpanded ones are depressed and imbri- 

 cate over one another like the tiles of a house. The corolla 

 is of a very deep purple blue, the tube and calyx both 

 short. Tab. 4550 of this work gives an excellent figure 

 of the extreme form of capitata. 



Now, though these distinctions are so well marked in 

 extreme forms, they all disappear in innumerable inter- 

 mediate ones. As an instance I have figured on the same 

 plate (at B.) with P. erosa, a leaf and head of a form of P. 

 capitata, which happened to be flowering in the Royal 

 Gardens at the same time with it. Comparing this with the 

 figure at Tab. 4550, the difference will be seen to be very 

 great; the leaves indeed are similar, but the head is far looser, 

 the flowers three times as large ; the calyx is nearly the same, 

 but the corolla-tube is much longer and inflated above the 

 middle. The herbarium shows many intermediates between 

 this form and that figured at Tab. 4550 ; and in like 

 manner there are many intermediate forms between P. 

 denticulata, and erosa. Lastly, some of these forms of 

 denticulata, appear to approach states of the Siberian and 

 European P. altaica, Lehm., and P. farinosa, L. 



P. erosa is found throughout most parts of the Himalaya, 

 but I did not observe it in Sikkim. It is known in gardens 

 as P. capitata, var. crispa. Both it and the P. capitata 

 here figured were raised from seeds sent by Dr. King, of 

 the Calcutta Botanical Gardens. — J. D. H. 



Fig. A. P. erosa, of the natural size; A 1, portion of leaf; A 2, calyx; A3, 

 corolla laid open ; A 4, ovary : — all enlarged. 



Fig. B. Form of P. capitata ; B 1, leaf, of the natural size ; B 2, flower, 

 enlarged. 



