58 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
Angustifolia, simplicifolia, bella, grandis, racemosa, 
horridula, integrifolia, punicea, compose a grand total of 
beauty very hard to beat, and also, I fear, rather hard to 
enjoy. Very quick drainage, good deep, deep compost,— 
rough, peaty, gritty, sandy, yet rich,—with an exposure 
neither bleak nor overshadowed, make up my prescription 
for these gorgeous exotic Poppies. Thriving in such 
conditions I have young plants of racemosa (which 
thrives anyhow, in ordinary soil), aculeata, grandis, 
simplicifolia, and integrifolha. Of course, I dare not 
claim success until they have flowered. And then, I 
greatly fear me, they will probably die. For these plants 
are generally biennials, or, at least, have a tendency to be 
monocarpous, that is, to die as soon as they have safely 
flowered and set seed. Nor is seed, as a rule, very certain 
to fill and be fruitful; nor, even so, is it particularly 
easy to raise and rear. The easiest to deal with, pro- 
bably, is integrifolia, whose enormous lemon-coloured 
globes have made the sensation of the Temple Show for 
two years past. Punicea, to my. taste, though not to 
most people’s, is even more attractive, with its pendulous, 
great ragged-looking blooms of a deep, obscure scarlet. 
It is more possibly perennial than integrifolia, which is 
frankly monocarpous, but seeds very fairly well. 
As for simplicifolia—there, indeed, is all my hope 
stored. It is said to be the counterpart of integrifolia, 
but with flowers of a soft, clear blue. Ask what our 
{xpedition thought of it when first they sighted Holy 
Lhasa and the Golden Mountain of the Potala, with the 
clear blue of heaven above, and the clear blue of Meco- 
nopsis simplicifola filling all the foreground. My young 
plants seem strong in growth, and are now in bud, but 
what frightens me is the uncertain colouring of these 
blue Poppies. JWadllichii, besides its azure glories, pro- 
duces seedlings of every dull shade of brown and mauve ; 
