EAST NEPAL AND THE blKKIJl HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS. 99 



14. R. Thomsonl (and R. candelabrum). — Distribution 

 and range : East Nepal and Sikkim — 1 1,000 to 13,000 

 feet — in moist valleys. 



A bush 6 to 10 feet high, or in damp woods 15 feet, but then 

 spare and woody. Lower branches stout, a foot in diameter ; 

 upper slender, leafy at the extremities. Leaves 2 to 3 inches long, 

 very broad, much resembling those of R. campijlocarptim, only 

 that in the latter the leaf-stalks are often glandular, here never ; 

 the texture of the leaves is coriaceous, but not very thick, the 

 colour pale green, below sub-glaucous, everywhere quite gla- 

 brous. Flowers in a head of 6 or 8 together from the ends of 

 short branches among the leaves, on stalks an inch or more long, 

 which radiate, as it were, from a centre, spreading horizontally, 

 or curving downwards. Corolla remarkable for its almost un- 

 rivalled deep blood-red colour and glossy surface, yielding only 

 to R. fulgens ; deeper coloured than that of R. arbor eum ; 

 the tube elongated, often vertically compressed, 2 inches long; 

 the limb large, spreading, 5-lobed, the lobes notched, upper ones 

 spotted. This species is perfectly inodorous. In the base of the 

 corolla is secreted much honey, which is not considered poisonous, 

 like that yielded by R. Dalhousice and R. argeniemn. The two 

 latter species are said to render deleterious the wild honey which 

 is collected during their flowering season. ' 



15. R. Wightii. — Distribution and range: East Nepal 

 and Sikkim — 12,000 to 14,000 feet — alpine valleys, 

 abundant. 



A small shrubby tree, yielding, in beauty of inflorescence, to 

 none amongst tlie yellow-flowered group to which it belongs. 

 The trunks are often as thick as the thigh, and branch very much 

 both upwards and outwards, forming a thickset shrub of 10 feet 

 high. Leaves 6 to 8 (rarely 10) inches long, 2h to 3 broad, 

 very coriaceous, more plane tlian is usual in the genus, bright 

 green above, beneath covered with a very closely appressed 

 opaque wool of a deep rufous colour, rarely pale and nearly 

 white in the young foliage. Heads much larger than those of 

 R. arboreum, 12 to 2U-flowered, the flowers not densely packed. 

 Bracteal scales chesnut-brown, very coriaceous and viscid. 

 Flowers have a faint honeyed smell ; foliage inodorous. This 

 exceedingly handsome and abundant species replaces the R. 

 Hodgsoni in ascending the moiuitains, and is the most prevalent 

 species at 12,000 and 13,000 feet, conspicuous at all seasons for 

 its large foliage, of a rusty cinnamon-colour beneath, and for its 

 viscid buds. 



