sky-blue but in I. rudis, as the figure here given shows, 
they sometimes have a purple tinge. It is now over a 
quarter of a century since the late Mr. Franchet first 
received specimens of this species from the late Abbé 
Delavay and treated them as identical with. M/. racemosa, 
Maxim., a plant which has, however, now been in culti- 
vation in English rock gardens for a number of years 
and is readily distinguished from M. rudis by the darker 
blue of its petals and the absence of purple from its 
spines. The only other species with which J. rudis has 
been confounded is M. Prattii, originally treated as a 
variety of M. sinuata, but better kept distinct from that 
species on account of its having 5-8 petals in place of 
4 asin M. sinuata. The petals in M. Prattii are pale 
blue as in M. rudis and in M. aculeata, but the foliage 
and the torus are as in M. racemosa which is itself only 
the usual condition assumed by the Poppywort originally 
described as M. horridula, Hook. f. & Thoms. The intro- 
duction of M. rudis to European gardens has been due 
in almost equal degree to Mr. E. H. Wilson and Mr. G. 
Forrest by whom it has been collected in Szechuan and 
in Yunnan. The plant figured is one of a large number 
raised from seeds collected by the first named traveller for 
the Arnold Arboretum and presented to Kew by Professor 
C. 8. Sargent. The seeds were sown on a slope in the 
rock garden in the spring of 1911, and the plants 
flowered in June 1913. The species has proved hardy at 
Kew, but, as was anticipated when it was originally 
described, it has been uniformly monocarpic; all the 
plants that have flowered at Kew died soon after ripening 
their seeds. 
Description.—Tlerb, monocarpic; stem 14-3 ft. high, 
simple, scapose, prickly. Leaves at the base rosulate . 
but soon disappearing, those of the stem alternate, armed 
on both sides with simple prickles which are usually 
purple based, but are often straw-coloured upwards, 
oblong-lanceolate in outline, margin almost entire or 
sparingly bluntly toothed, apex obtuse or acute, narrowed. 
below into a very wide petiole, pale green above, 
glaucescent beneath ; leaf blade 3-54 in. long, 1-14 in. 
wide ; lower petioles 11-14 in. long, gradually decreasing 
