Northern India in 1828-32.. It has since been collected 
by several travellers in the same region, growing at 
elevations of from 3,000 to 8,000 ft., in the Kurrum 
Valley, Afghanistan, by Dr. Aitchison; and at Ziarat, 
Baluchistan, at 8,500 ft., by the late Mr. J. H. Lace. It 
does not appear to have been introduced into cultivation 
in this country till Mr. H. J. Elwes obtained seeds 
collected in Kashmir by Mr Radcliffe of the Forest 
Department, from which he raised some plants in his 
garden at Colesborne, Gloucestershire; from these he 
sent flowering material to Kew in September, 1916, and 
again in August, 1919. Attaining as it does a height of 
about six feet, with basal leaves up to a foot long and 
dense whorls of rather large rose-purple flowers, it forms 
a striking object in the herbaceous border. It is easily 
cultivated, Mr. Elwes informs us, in any soil and is quite 
hardy in the open. The genus Pélomis now comprises 
over eighty species, about twenty of which are or have 
been in cultivation. The well-known /. fruticosa, L., a 
native of South-eastern Europe, is occasionally found 
naturalised in England. In the Flora of British India 
it is suggested that P. oreophila, Kar. and Kir., from 
Alatau, is probably a small state of P. spectabilis. The 
two species are manifestly quite distinct. The plant 
now figured is assigned by Bentham to the first 
(Luphlomis) of the two sections into which the species of 
Phlomis are grouped. The flowers are, however, much 
‘more correctly described in the definition of the sec- 
tion Phlomidopsis, which includes P. tuberosa and 
P. macrophylla, species obviously closely allied to P. 
spectabilis, 
Description.—Herb, perennial. Stem erect, sparingly branched, stout, 
cylindric, about 6 ft. high, 1-2 in. thick, sometimes ai fist more or less 
stellately hoary-tomentose, rarely sparingly hispid, at length glabrous and 
often glatfeous; internodes long, sometimes over'8 in. long. Leaves petioled, 
ovate-cordate, subacute or rounded at the tip, deep and widely cordate at the 
I or in the upper parts of the stem, cuneate or rounded, coarsely and 
irregularly toothed or at times faintly lobed, upper leaves often almost 
regularly dentate or serrate, green and sparsely pilose above, stellately hoary- 
tomentose beneath, main-nerves conspicuous; basal leaves 8-12 in. long, 
6-11 in. wide; petiole hispid, 6-12 in. long; stem leaves gradually smaller 
upwards, the lowest 6 in. long, over 4 in. wide, with petiole from }-4 in. long, 
the uppermost reduced to bracts. Flower-whorls 3-9, most often 4-6, 2-6 in. 
apart, sometimes 30-flowered. Bracteoles acicular, over } in. long, sparingly 
hispidulous. Calyx tubular funnel-shaped, about 4 in. long, sparsely 
