APPENDIX. 



the Mia B'an, from 11,000 to 14,000 feet, growing for choice in the cool alpine 

 turf, usually on steeper barer banks than those affected by the luxuriant mossy- 

 looking masses of F 217. Seed very doubtful, and not distributed. 



Gentiana Sp. (F 267). — Unfortunately blooms too late in September for 

 seed to have been got. It grows only on rock towards the highest summits, 

 between 12,000 and 15,000 feet, and there forms wads of foliage like Melandryum 

 Elizctbrthae, close on which lie stemless the enormous trumpets of lavender blue. 



Gentiana Sp. (F 303) stands close to G. Kurroo. It is, however, rather 

 smaller, and more leafy, with flowers much more numerous along the flopping 

 6- to 8-inch stems in September, rather smaller, and of an intense rich 

 sapphire velvet. It grows all along by the waysides, in the banks and little 

 level lawns beside the road in the J6-ni district, not ascending above 8000 feet, 

 and hugging always the flatter places of the loess region, in such hard dry loam 

 and in such open sunny places as those preferred by G. cruciata. (P. Purdomii, 

 Sp. nova.) 



Gentiana Sp. (F 332) represents the large-ovaried species from the Min 

 S'an, of which the Thundercrown development has been sent out as F 217. 

 (This proves G. Farreri, the glory of 1915.) 



Gentiana Sp. (F 442) comes from the Min S'an grass-lands, and was har- 

 vested by a Chinese collector. No more can be said ; it is perhaps one of the 

 hideous cluster-headed Gentians of the Macrophylla-mongolica Group that so 

 abound in the Chinese Alps, and are yearly collected in huge bales for 

 " medicine." 



Gentiana Sp. (F 443) is a pretty annual, from the high alpine turf all along 

 the Min S'an. From its frail crown it sends out a few frail prostrate sprays, 

 supporting at intervals, perfectly erect, very long-tubed five-pointed stars of 

 clear straw yellow, of charming effect among the grass in August. 



Geranium Sp. (F 201). — There are many field Geraniums up and down the 

 grass-lands of Tibet, but none of them likely to be of any garden value — rather 

 weedy herbaceous things for the most part, akin to G. sylvatiewn. F 201, 

 however, is of quite a different kidney — being a high-alpine species, found 

 only in the topmost screes of shale or limestone at 13,000 to 15,000 feet, where 

 it abounds in such masses as to cover the whole vast expanse of desolation 

 with the fluttering flights of its innumerable big flowers of palest pink in 

 August, crowded on footstalks of 2 or 3 inches, all over the concise clump of 

 each plant, making mounds of soft pallor all up and down the desolation. In 

 effect it approaches nearest to G. argenteum, but is much neater, much more 

 lavishly be-blossomed, and in colour of an even paler and more evanescent 

 pink. It is the only important Min S'an alpine which does not seem to extend 

 down to Thundercrown ; and its season is so awkward that it was only after 

 great difficulty and exertion that two seeds were hacked up out of the ice- 

 locked adamant of the mountain in autumn. Runners, however, have also 

 been sent, and it is to be greatly hoped may survive the journey. (Photograph.) 



Hedysarum Sp. (F 103) occurs in big stretches down the river-shingles of 

 the Black Water, between Kiai Chow and Wen Hsien, but its main distribution 



502 



