APPENDIX. 



It is rather a rank and ugly thing, coarse and flopping, with voluminous flannelly 

 foliage and weak stems of a foot or so, bearing loose spires of dim baggy-belled 

 flowers of vinous mauve in summer. 



Saussurea Sp. (F 337) I had not meant to send for anyone but Mr. Bowles, 

 that lover of curious delights. However, as the quantity is sufficient, all may 

 have their share, for what it is worth, of this odd thing which, perfectly tight 

 to the ground in barer places of the upper alpine turf of Thundercrown and 

 the Min S'an, there produces a fat head of (probably) quite dowdy flowers, 

 followed by the plant's one attraction, a wide gleaming collarette of silver- 

 smoke, which when ripe detaches itself all of a piece and floats away upon the 

 air like a filmy cigarette ring. No other Saussurea attracted notice (and this, 

 only by its seed), though there is a flannelly-leaved one (if Saussurea it be) on 

 the highest bare stone-slopes of the Min S'an, with Primuloid rosettes of grey 

 foliage, and fat great buzzle-heads of undistinguished (so far as one could fore- 

 tell) flower. 



Saxifraga. — Take it all in all, the Saxifrages of this part of the Border are 

 not brilliant in flower, nor profuse in variety. Of the Kabschia Group one 

 species only ; of the Porphyrons doubtfully one (out of flower and inde- 

 cipherable in the topmost cold limestone crags of the Min S'an) ; the bulk 

 belong to less interesting sections, and have so far yielded only one first-class 

 plant. 



Saxifraga Sp. (F 73) is our one Kabschia ; it is a neat and beautiful thing, 

 forming masses like those of a rather lax S. valdensis, on which are applied soli- 

 tary-blossomed stems of S. marginata, making a fine effect when the domes 

 are covered in May with 2-inch stems each flourishing a full-faced snowy 

 flower. It haunts cool aspects of the upper limestone cliffs from Satanee to 

 the Min S'an, never appearing in other situations, and varying, like all its group, 

 in brilliancy and amplitude of blossom. So scant a pinch of seed was alone 

 procurable that it will not yet be available for distribution (and never came up). 



Saxifraga Sp. (F 200) is by far the most important, this year, of its 

 race. It is a most splendid clump-forming species of the Hirculus Group, very 

 profuse in stems of 6 to 8 inches, beset with rather conspicuous glaucous-grey 

 foliage, and expanding into generous corymbs in July, of noble citron-yellow 

 flowers with a deeper golden base. It abounds in all the higher alpine turf ot 

 the Border, between 10,000 and 13,000 feet, and ranges from Thundercrown up 

 on to the lusher cooler flower-fields of the Min S'an, where amid the pale blue 

 surf of Gentiana F 217, its rich tufts of grey and gold make an effect of perfect 

 beauty. (A quite inferior cousin, of the same group, often accompanies it.) 

 No other species was really worthy of note or collection, though F 216 was a 

 wee green moss with golden stars, that had a delicate gaiety in cool moist rock- 

 ledges up the valley opposite J6-ni. 



Sedum. — Of these the greater majority here are, as elsewhere, dull and 

 uninteresting plants. F. 238, however, is a prettyish little thing, from the 

 topmost bare screes of the Min S'an and Thundercrown, being like a small 

 and dainty 8. rhodanthum of 3 or 4 inches, with the fine-leaved shoots each 



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