MECONOPSIS. 
of stamens, the violet colouring, the hairier capsules, and the perennial 
habit—all help to differentiate it from M. simplicifolia. (See Appendix : 
by now the Harebell Poppy is well established in cultivation.) 
M. racemosa stands to M. horridula as M. integrifolia to M. pseud- 
integrifolia, that is, with the same leaves (but almost entire and not 
feathered deeply into lobes as with M. aculeata), and similarly glaucous- 
grey and horrid with stiff yellowish bristles; its flowers do not spring 
straight and lonely from the stock, but the plant throws up a definite 
spike, and this in turn throws off foot-stalks so long that the spike be- 
comes a loose elongated pyramid or rhomb of blossoms about 18 inches 
high, the flowers being large, in variable shades of rich blue or violet, 
with never less than five petals, but almost invariably with six. The 
blossoms open irregularly, and when the lower stems are expanding 
their blooms, the upper ones have long since elongated stiffly and 
stalwartly to carry each its erect short-haired swollen pods. This species, 
a delight of Szechuan and Eastern Tibet, is more conveniently re- 
duced to a local development, with M. rudis, of M. horridula (see the 
note under M. sinuata), from which it only differs in forming an 
emergent stem for its flower-stalks to spring from, instead of letting 
them rise straight from the stock. That is, the stock in M. racemosa 
behaves like a telescope, and elongates above ground ; in the type it 
is a telescope compressed, and the stems have to spring, as it were, 
from its outside rim. The plant, however, passing under this name 
in gardens, is often M. sinuata; true M. racemosa will be known by 
its petals never being less than five and usually more ; in this bristled 
group only M. aculeata and M. sinuata have four petals; the plate 
of Graf Silva Tarouca’s book, for instance, refers rather to M. sinuata 
than to M. racemosa. It is probable, though, that the plant from 
near Chebson Abbey, on which Maximowicz based his M. racemosa, 
was the species now known as M. Praitii which there exclusively 
abounds, true racemosa occurring (with its form M. horridula), only 
in the Alps south-west of Si-ning. The whole question is obscure. 
M. robusta.—This is a fine giant, figured in Flora and Sylva as 
M. paniculata, a species which it replaces in the high alps of Garhwal 
and Kumaon, and from which it finally differs in lacking the stellar 
hairs, and also in having its leaves very deeply lobed after the fashion 
of M. napaulensis and M. Wallichii, which they closely resemble, 
but have only a few scanty hairs, long and soft and spreading. It is, 
of course, the M. « paniculata” of catalogues, thus leaving the true 
M. paniculata free to bear the false name of « nepalensis” in those falla- 
cious pages. Between the two, however, there is little for the gardener 
to choose, both having ample and stalwart spires of yellow flowers, 
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