DRACOCEPHALUM. 
Japan. The name D. japonicum is, moreover, often used to cover 
that of D. altaiense, a wholly different species round whose synonyms 
so much confusion ranges that, as among them lurks at least one 
species of extreme beauty for the rock-garden (if of no less difficulty), 
it will be best to give the synonymy and diagnoses of D. imberbe, 
D. altaiense, and D. grandiflorum in fuller measure. 
D. altaiense, Laxmann, is an erect grower of 6 or 9 inches, hairless 
below, and then downy-hairy above. The leaves are kidney-shaped, 
oblong-elliptic rounded, with heart-shaped lobes at the base, scalloped 
and toothed at their edge, the lower ones being on long footstalks, 
and all of them clothed in spreading hairs. The whorls of big blue 
flowers are gathered at the top into a tight head, which afterwards 
draws up to an oblong spike, and under each there is a very 
conspicuous rounded leaf or bract, wedge-shaped to the stem and 
cut into sharp saw-like teeth. And this plant is also D. altaiense, of 
Willdenow, as well as being D. altaicum (Schangin), and D. grandi- 
florum (Bentham)—here being the source of primal error. 
D. grandiflorum of Linnaeus has the sole right to this name for 
which they are all battling. It is less erect than the others, rather weak 
at first, and then rising ; with the stem clothed in downy pubescence, 
and the leaves oval-oblong, scalloped or saw-edged, not heart-lobed, 
but wedge-shaped to the base, and grey with spreading hairs ; the flowers 
are narrower than in the others, less divided, and their whorls not 
crowded into a head or spike at the top, but perfectly distinct, and with 
oblong bracts, almost uncut at the edge, and ending in a protracted 
point as fine as a tip of hair. Whichever plant of these three is got 
hold of, under whichever name, will prove a beauty none the less, 
and should be grown with special care in a very gritty morainish bed, 
or in the moraine itself, with water flowing below, perhaps, in summer, 
but as perfect drought as possible in winter. For these have not the 
robustness that their robust and squatting look appears to promise. 
They all bloom in high and late summer like almost all their family, 
and it is no wonder if, amid such rivalry for the same names, confusion 
should be rife among them. 
D. imberbe is D. grandiflorum of Willdenow, and D. altaiense, 
Hiltebr. This is, as its name tells us, an imberb thing, not hairy but 
only downy, and with the kidney-shaped, almost rounded leaves 
quite smooth on both surfaces as a rule (but perhaps hoary under- 
neath), and always very deeply scalloped. The habit is much the 
same as in the last, but here there are not the long bracts, and the 
whorls of blue blossom are in spiked heads. 
Of other meritorious Dragon-heads are D. argunense, of 10 inches 
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