Tan. 6760, 
MECONOPSIS Watticau, var. fusco-purpurea. 
Native of the Eastern Himalaya. 
Nat. Ord. Papaveracexz.—Tribe EvpaPavERER. 
Genus Meconopsis, Vig.; (Benth. et Hook. f. Gen, Pl. vol. i. p. 52.) 
Meconorsis Wallichii, Hook.; Bot. Mag. t. 4668; Icon. in Jard. Fleuristr, 
vol. iii. t. 315, e¢ in Fl. de Serres, vol. viii. t. 753 iterata; Hook.f. et Thoms. 
Fl. Ind. vol, i. p. 254; Hook. f. Fl. Brit. Ind. vol. i. p. 119; Belgique 
Horticole, vol. iv. t. 18. 
Var. fusco-purpurea ; petalis fusco-purpureis. 
The Himalayan alpine and subalpine species of Meco- 
nopsis threaten to prove troublesome to the botanist, being 
sportive both in habit and in the colour of the flowers ; 
added to which the type specimens of the discoverer of 
three of them, the late Dr. Wallich, are much mixed in his 
Herbarium, now preserved in the apartments of the Linnean 
Society. These three are, M. nepalensis, DC. (t. 5585), 
M. Wallichii, Hook. (t. 4668), and M. robusta, Hook. f. 
and Thoms.; and there is the M. aculeata, Roxb. (Bot.. 
Mag. t. 5456), which differs little except in size from M. 
_ Wallichii. All these have a branched panicle of large 
_ flowers, the development of which, in number and size of 
the flowers, depends a good deal upon the altitude and 
exposure of the locality in which they grow, insomuch that 
it would not be surprising if the species of another group 
of the genus, which are single-flowered and inhabit very 
lofty regions (M. simplicifolia, and M. horridula, Hook. t. 
and T.), proved to be reduced forms of the larger species of 
lower elevations. 
M. Wallichii was first made known by Wallich through 
the collectors which he employed in the mountains of Nepal; 
_ and I collected it in the adjacent province of Sikkim in 
1848, at elevations of 9000 to 10,000 feet, whence I sent 
Seeds home, which produced in 1852 the plant figured in 
JUNE Ist, 1884, 
