1921-22.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 145 



Kew Bulletin, 1913, p. 266. There he distinguishes his 

 species from L. sutchuenense by the rigid stem densely and 

 shortly hispid, white-bearded in the leaf-axils, leaves linear- 

 oblong, with scabrid, revolute margins, flowers in a lax 

 pyramidal raceme and by the villose buds. Mr. Wilson 

 splits up what he considers is Franchet's composite type, 

 placing Prince Henri's plant under Thayerae and leaving 

 Farges' plant as sutchuenense as the one first cultivated in 

 Europe and figured as sutchuenense. It should be noted 

 that Franchet quotes Prince Henri's plant first in his 

 diagnosis. Franchet's description is more or less applicable 

 to both gatherings, and in any case Franchet considered 

 the two conspecific. 



The plant or plants concerned here are not restricted in 

 distribution to the province of Szechwan. Under the 

 native name of Hong-pei-ho a lily is widely cultivated 

 throughout Szechwan and all parts of Yunnan — brought 

 also into certain of the provinces to the east of these two. 

 The cultivation of the plant spells trouble. The difiiculty 

 arises with many Chinese plants apart from Lilium. An 

 article of food ranging in cultivation through so wide an 

 area would be sure to show race variations, and would 

 certainly vary in size of bulb, rigidity of stem, and inflor- 

 escence. As regards size of bulb, vigour of growth, form 

 of inflorescence^ and especially villosity, Forrest noted in 

 the field greab divergences in what he judges to be the 

 same plant. His specimens support his view, but on his 

 present expedition he promises to collect more fully with 

 a view to obtaining conclusive evidence. 



Mr. Wilson tells me he has come to the decision that his 

 L. Thayerae is equivalent to L. Davidi. This acute ob- 

 servation has much to commend it. We have seen that 

 Davidi was based on very slight material ; the foliage in 

 the two is very similar, the slight recurving of the perianth 

 segments is probabl}^ due to imperfections in the drying of 

 incompletely opened flowers (I have similar stages in more 

 than one of Forrest's Yunnan plants of this series) ; the 

 colour of dried Davidi was orange to Mr. Elwes' eye, and, 

 most important of all, the very remarkable villosity of the 

 bud which persists frequently in the fully opened flowers 

 is one of the characters employed by Mr. Wilson to mark 



