APPENDIX. 



coppice in the Tibetan valley-bottoms opposite J6-ni, first appearing at some 

 10,000 feet and thence ascending to the high grass-ridges, haunting the glade- 

 edges and light bushery of the glen, until in the open hayfields it rages furi- 

 ously over all the hill, between 11,000 and 13,000 feet, dappling the distances 

 with blood like any Poppy in an English field ; and, in the little grassy hollows 

 along the crests, hovering in flapping flags of vermilion above the rippling sea 

 of go!den-eyed purple Asters. For in England those dim flags of scarlet flop ; 

 on the Tibetan Alps they blaze and flap — huge expanded stiff goblets or wave- 

 winged butterflies of incandescent blood, that compel from me a palinode to 

 my previous rather cold description of M. punicea, as alone I had hitherto 

 known it, showing no trace of its own true sinuous and serpentine magnificence. 

 This glory of the upland open hayfields, and scant cool coppice of the lower 

 region in the cool Tibetan Alps, should be sown broadcast at home in moist rich 

 soil amid pleasant neighbours, with loose scrub of Pinus montana all about to 

 keep off excessive heat and drought ; it is invariably biennial, from a slight 

 weak tap, and does not extend out of Tibet into the warmer drier Alps of 

 Thundercrown, nor southwards (so far as I could find) into those of Satanee. 

 (Painting and photograph.) (The Blood Poppy.) 



Morina Sp. (F 215). — A doubtful name ; in any case it is a pretty Morinoid 

 Labiate, with glossy spinous-edged foliage, and stems of a foot or so, with 

 close heads of cream-coloured blossom in August. It haunts the higher grass- 

 lands of the Tibetan Alps at some 11,000 feet ; and, though not special, has a 

 meek attraction. 



Myosotis Sp. (F 245) is very general all over the drier regions of South 

 Kansu and Tibet, the seed having been collected on the walls of J6-ni. It is 

 a small annual-biennial species, forming little low tangles of quite prostrate 

 sprays, beset from March to September with a profusion of light blue stars of a 

 peculiar soft loveliness like that of Omphalodes. Carpeting a sandy patch 

 round the foot of a big boulder it looks really beautiful in its quiet way, and 

 ought, though not of high importance or startlingness, to give a great deal 

 of modest pleasure in suitable poor and gravelly levels, for preference in 

 fullest sun. It is miffy and short-lived. 



Onosma Sp. (F 3) has not been collected. It fills all the torrid banks, in 

 the torrid region of the Black Water and the Nan Ho, with low clumped masses 

 of narrow grey foliage ; from which, in April, unfurl croziers of long pale blue 

 bugles, very pretty, but not large enough, and with the unfortunate notion of 

 attempting a copy, at all points, of the supreme and inimitable Lithospermum 

 graminifolium. 



Ophiopogon Sp. (F 302) (0. kansucnsis) occurs at one point in the Nan Ho 

 Valley, on cool ledges of rock, or at the track-side, or about the roots of light 

 scant scrub — forming evergreen mats of very dark, wiry grass-fine foliage, from 

 which spring 6-inch spikes in July, unfolding a spire of lovely crystalline and 

 waxen stars, seeming as if carved out of lavender or rose-flushed ivory, and 

 followed by balls of blue-black fruit in November. I considered it a most 

 lovely, dainty thing. In cultivation it is very slow and reluctant. 



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