this plant was known when first introduced to cultiva- 

 tion, was given to it by the late Mr. Franchet as long 

 ago as 1886, but although the name was duly recorded 

 in that year, no description of the plant was then pub- 

 lished. After the receipt of Soulie's Tibetan specimens, 

 Franchet in 1895 reconsidered his earlier view and, when 

 describing the plant, referred it, as a variety, to A. Aizoon, 

 Duby, a nearly allied but much larger species which is 

 characteristic of similar localities in western Tibet and 

 northern Kashmir. While, however, Franchet then used 

 for the presumed variety his original specific name, he 

 did not formally indicate the identity of the plant 

 described with the species already in cultivation as 

 A, coccinea. That the two are the same thing was first 

 authenticated in the * Pflanzenreich ' in 1905. To Mr. 

 Forrest we are indebted not only for the re-introduction 

 of this beautiful plant, but for pointing out that it fully 

 deserves to be considered a species apart from S. Aizoon, 

 though the suggestion that it is distinct also from the 

 plant which Franchet referred to that species as var. 

 coccinea is now known to have been unnecessary. In 

 the * Gardeners' Chronicle' in 1915 caution was enjoined 

 on this point, and a careful examination of adequate 

 suites of specimens has shown that the minute differences 

 relied upon as distinguishing Forrest's plant from the 

 original A. coccinea collected by Delavay are not constant. 

 The material for our figure has been obtained from one 

 of Forrest's plants grown at Kew, where A. coccinea has 

 proved somewhat difficult to manage during the winter 

 which intervenes between the season in which it forms 

 only a rosette of leaves and that in which it produces 

 its scapes. It is barely hardy, for while plants in boxes 

 in a frame whence frost is excluded thrive well, others in 

 pots in an ordinary cold frame suffer many casualties. 

 The most suitable soil has been found to be a well- 

 drained loam. 



Description.— Herb, biennial, slender with a stout 

 woody, several-crowned, vertical root. Leaves numerous 

 m a close rosette, sessile, spathulate, obtuse but finely 

 mucronulate, much narrowed to the base, 1-1| in. long, 

 l~l in. wide, with narrow translucent or slightly 



