occurring on mountains near Pekin, where it was dis- 
covered by the early Jesuit missionary, Father d’Incarville, 
previous to 1740, who sent specimens to Jussieu that are 
preserved in the Museum ‘of the Jardin de Plantes at 
Paris. 
It has been more recently collected by Dr. Bret- 
schneider, the learned physician to the Russian Km- 
bassy, on mountains near Pekin, and by Dr. Bullock of 
the English Embassy. Its introduction into cultivation 
is due to Dr. Bretschneider, who sent seeds to Kew and 
elsewhere in 1880. Plants raised from these seeds flowered 
for the first time in Kew in May, 1888. It need not be 
said of a North Chinese shrub that it is perfectly hardy, 
and it is as fragrant as the common lilac. The corolla is 
exceedingly variable in length of tube, which sometimes 
exceeds half an inch. 
Descr. An erect shrub, glabrous except the leaves 
beneath ; branches covered with brown bark ; branchlets 
slender, red-brown. Leaves one and a half to two inches 
long and sometimes nearly as broad, very broadly ovate 
or elliptic, or almost orbicular, obtuse ; base rounded or 
cuneate, dark green above, subglaucous beneath, and 
with more or less deciduous villous pubescence towards 
the base, or quite glabrous; margins towards the base 
obscurely ciliate; petiole a quarter to one-half of an inch, 
slender, red-brown. Thyrses two to three inches long, 
erect, sessile, branched at the very base, subcylindric ; 
rachis and branches red-brown; flowers sessile, suberect, 
pale rose-lilac. Calyzx-lobes broadly ovate. Corolla-tube 
very variable in length, a quarter to one-half of an inch 
long, cylindric ; lobes oblong, obtuse, margins thick in- 
flexed. Stamens small, placed one-third way down the 
tube. Ovary globose; style short, stigma narrowly ob- 
long, notched. Capsule half or two-thirds of an inch 
long, narrowly oblong, obtuse, cylindric.—J. D. H. 
Fig. 1, Flowers; 2, cal : : i ; 
’ ; yx, style, and st REF Ila laid open; 4, 
anther ; 5, ovary :—all more or hess salunped : nie 2 
