APPENDIX. 



Cypripedium margaritaceum is a very rare species, occurring on 

 almost pure limestone in pine-woods of the Mekong district. It is stemless as C 

 acaule, with a pair of ridgy purple-blotched leaves, from which arises a 4 to 

 5-inch penduncle, carrying a waxen morbid bloom of yellowishness beclouded 

 with maroon, and covered in shining purple hair3. The lip is long and of a 

 less copiously maculate yellow. 



Daphne Sp. (F 11) (? D. tangutica). — This is abundant all over South-West 

 Kansu, from Shi-ho away to Siku, in the lowest alpine zone, amid very light 

 scrub, and usually preferring a slightly-shaded cool aspect in 6oil that may be 

 yellow loam, or mould, or turfy peat, or limestone detritus. It ascends to 

 some 7500 to 8000 feet on the moorland ridges above Ga-hoba, and above 

 Siku is as finely developed among the calcareous debris at the debouchure of 

 gorges as is D. alpina among that about the Lago di Loppio. It forms a neat, 

 rounded, low bush, about 15 to 24 inches high, and rather more across, 

 with the foliage, and after the style of, a small D. indica ; and the masses 

 of lilac-pale blossom appear in April, filling the air with fragrance, especially 

 fas it seemed to me) in the later afternoon, and followed at the end of June 

 by a brilliant clustered show of glowing vermilion fruits. 



Delphinium Sp. (F 253).— Referring to " The English Rock-Garden," I find 

 that D. tanguticum stands closely related to D. caueasicum, and, from the simi- 

 larity of their styles and sites, I therefore have to conclude that F 253 is D. 

 tanguticum and no other. It is a noble beauty, confined to the limestone and 

 shalestone screes along the upmost gaunt aretes in the Min S'an extending 

 down to Thundercrown. Through the shingle it threads and spreads, and over 

 all the grim slope hovers in August a flight, as it seems, of enormous violet- 

 purple butterflies, flitting close over the stones, with wide-fluttering silken 

 wings, and a black eye. and a body furred with white and gold. These single- 

 flowered 2-inch scree Delphiniums are none of them known as yet in culti- 

 vation ; they make an absolutely new tradition of beauty in their race, and 

 should be at home perennially in the moraine. Of the larger species so 

 abundant up and down the Border, I will not here speak ; none, I think, 

 offer any really valuable contribution to the garden. F 243, however, of 

 which one rather doubtful pod was secured on Thundercrown, is another 

 high-alpine species of the screes, with some 2 or 3 flowers on a low- 

 squatting stem among the foliage, and, though large, of a rather indeter- 

 minate lilac-purple, with a rather dulling downiness of pubescence on their 

 part3. (F 253, in the garden, tends to grow gawky and pallid.) 



Dianthus. — This race is very ill-represented in the Tibetan Alps. D. 

 $quarro8tu, or a species closely akin to it (F 389), abounds in the upper grass- 

 lands, while on Lotus Mountain, low down, occurs a small red-flowered Cluster- 

 head (F 352). 



Dicranostigma Sp. (F 1) is a Great Celandine, abounding on precipitous 

 field-banks and walls of the loess right away from Honan to the Tibetan border. 

 It makes a very handsome basal rosette of richly glaucous-lobed foliage, like 

 a blue Ceterach, from which arises a profusion of stems in April, showering 



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