48 
the upper one, especially on the veins, with similarly-coloured short 
hairs. The margins are dentate and ciliate; the petiole about 
1 inch long, bearing a few decurved prickles, and covered with 
hairs, some of which are tipped with black glands. The flowers are 
orne in an elongated lax panicle, the calyx being covered with red, 
glandular hairs. The fruit is black, and ripens in June. 
Mr. E. H. Parker, after whom this species is named, first 
collected it in Szechuen in 1881. Seeds collected near Ichang in 
1907 by Wilson, were presented to Kew by Harvard University, 
and plants raised from them have stood the last two winters 
quite uninjured. 
This Rubus has distinct and striking foliage, and promises to 
make an elegant climber. 
Rubus Playfairii, Hemsley. 
A rambling shrub with very slender, whip-like, dark-green stems, 
covered when young with a cobweb-like down and bearing small 
decurved spines ,,th to th inch long. The leaves are compose 
of three to five leaflets ; the normal number appears to be five but 
the lower leaves on the stem have three or four leaflets only. The 
leaflets are lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, serrate, the terminal one 
the largest, up to 6 inches in length and shortly stalked ; lateral 
leaflets sessile or very shortly stalked. In some of the ternate leaves, 
the terminal leaflet is large and broad and the lateral ones unequally 
bilobed. They are all bright-green above, with a very close, pale 
grey felt beneath. The curious stipules are 4 inch long, very 
deeply laciniated. The flowers have little or no beauty, being 
4 inch in diameter, the calyx tomentose, with short acuminate lobes. 
The fruit is black, ripening in August and is said by one collector 
to be excellent. 
Whilst this Rubus may have little to recommend it in its flowers 
or fruit, it is very graceful in habit and very distinct and handsome 
in foliage. ; 
Rubus polytrichus, Franchet. 
_ A dwarf shrub with prostrate stems, inhabiting woodland and 
remarkably distinct from any other Rubus in cultivation. 
stems are terete, quite devoid of prickles or spines, but densely 
covered with pale yellowish-brown hairs, {th inch long. The leaves 
are simple, cordate, about 3 inches long by 2 inches wide, sharply 
toothed, the petiole, which is about 14 inches long, having the same 
hispid character as the stems ; the under surface is covered with a 
close whitish felt and the midrib and chief veins are furnished with 
bristly hairs, whilst on the dark-green upper surface the hairs are 
confined in rows between the chief veins. The flowering stems are 
erect, the flowers white, 1 inch or rather more across, the fruit 
bright-red and of good size and flavour. 
The plants at Kew were raised from seed collected for Harvard 
University and presented to Kew early in 1909. 
As the species, according to Mr. Wilson, is found at elevations of 
— ene feet in Western China, it will no doubt prove very 
ardy with us, and from its native habitats we may assume it wi 
make an addition to that class of shrubs which thrive in shaded or 
semi-shaded positions—a class which cultivators will be glad to see 
augmented. 
