APPENDIX. 



ending in a fluffy head of white sodden-looking flowers in August (S. Farreri, 

 Sp. nova). I cannot be certain if this will be to be distributed, as I cannot 

 decide whether it is identical with F 322, or whether this number covers a 

 cousin from similar sites and heights, still more like S. rhodantkum, with small 

 dull reddish flowers on stems an inch or two taller, and more freely produced, 

 than in the last. 



Sedum Sp. (F 336), however, if really Sedum and not Umbilicus, is a truly 

 beautiful thing. It seems special to very hot stony banks about Siku, and in 

 the little town itself grows in such abundance on every roof that the groove 

 between each ridge of tiles becomes a solid channel of its lovely blue-pink 

 metallic glaucous foliage, fat and cylindric, but in colour like a bedding 

 Echeveria's, from which in late August profusely arise dense fox-brush spikes 

 of 6 to 10 inches, breaking into serried pyramids of little coldly-white or 

 pinkly flushing stars. The flowered crown of this expires in seeding, but the 

 mass of the plant continues unperturbed, as in Saxifraga Cotyledon, and it 

 ought, in hot dry places, pebbly and parching and poor, to introduce quite a 

 new charm into our gardens, unaccustomed to such a style of beauty in Sedum. 



(?) Serratula Sp. (F 432) is a handsome but quite coarse thing, common 

 in open moorland fields all up the Border at low elevations, growing some 

 3 to 5 feet high, and expanding, in August, in a spreading compound head of 

 brilliant magenta-purple fluff like a gigantic Ageratum. In sunny rich stretches 

 of the wild garden it should make a fine effect. 



Stellera Sp. (F 93) is so named at Kew, but I find no other trace of a pink 

 Stellera. In any case, whether really Wikstroemia or any other Daphne-cousin, 

 this charming thing may be described as a herbaceous woody-stocked Daphne, 

 springing abundantly in all the high hayfields of the Tibetan Alps, ascending to 

 11,000 feet, but no less happy in coarse dry turf on the hot and sun-baked 

 foothills of Thundercrown. It springs in a moss of glaucous-leaved shoots 

 to a height of 8 to 12 inches, forming a compact dome of growth and 

 blossom, each undivided stem ending in June and July in a compact dome of 

 fragrant pearl-white Daphnes with a centre of varnished ruby-red buds. It is 

 evidently poisonous as the rest of the family, for in the Tibetan hayfields the 

 cattle pass it deliberately by, as they pass by buttercups in England. Its 

 seed is scanty and doubtful, and hard to catch ; it may not be sufficient for 

 distribution. Young plants should be most carefully guarded from root- 

 disturbance. (It is not very ready or hearty in cultivation.) 



Stellera Sp. (F 112) may just as easily be Wikstroemia or Farreria. It 

 is a willow-leaved, brilliantly-green sub-shrub of woody base, usually sprouting 

 herbaceously to a height of about a foot, with undivided stems ending each in 

 a loose thyrse of bright-yellow Daphne-flowers in June. On the hot bare loess 

 downs, to which it is peculiar (I know of it only on the torrid hills of Siku, ex- 

 tending up to Lodani, and a little way up the Nan Ho), it is compelled to this 

 habit by being pitilessly eaten back by the omnivorous goats ; where let alone 

 I have seen it develop into a branching bush of some 3 or 4 feet. The seed 

 drops while still its envelope is green, and though lavish in germination, 



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