1914-15.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 305 



addition there may be a villous covering of articulated 

 hairs. To this I shall refer presently. 



From this foliage tuft ascend one or more scapes which 

 overtop the leaves and often curve outwards through the 

 foliage before ascending vertically to end in an umbel of 

 six up to twenty flowers on strict pedicels, between which 

 there is so marked a time interval in evolution and 

 expansion that the first opening flower may be in full 

 anthesis at the end of its pedicel when those which will 

 open last are still in bud and have no pedicel to speak of- 

 An inequality in length of pedicel is thus a conspicuous 

 feature in the umbel. The bracts are small linear or 

 linear-lanceolate structures much shorter than the pedicels. 

 In cultivated specimens there may be a whorl of flowers 

 some distance below the terminal umbel. Neither in the 

 form I am dealing with nor in any other form of 

 P. obconica, Hance, from a wild station have I seen this 

 tiered arrangement. 



Each flower has a cup-shaped calyx with short teeth 

 and broad lobes, each with a mucro, and may nearly conceal 

 the corolla-tube, or this may be about twice the length of 

 the calyx. The lilac or purplish corolla-limb has an eye, 

 and there is a slight annulus at the top of the corolla-tube, 

 and the limb expands into broad obcordate bilobed rounded 

 segments. P. obconica, Hance, is one of those species in 

 which, in the short-styled flower, the style is very short, 

 and the stamens are inserted some distance below the top 

 of the tube, which forms an ampliate chamber above their 

 insertion, and does not exceed in length the calyx by so 

 much as is the case in the long-styled flower. The style in 

 the long-styled flower reaches close to the top of the corolla- 

 tube ; the tube regularly widens upwards, is much narrower 

 than the tube of the short-styled flower, and it also far 

 exceeds in length the calyx : and the stamens are inserted 

 low down, well within the calycine investment. In fruit 

 the calyx is accrescent, doubling in size and enclosing the 

 capsule which when ripe is somewhat top-shaped, its 

 crustaceous summit marked by five grooves of the car- 

 pellary valves with the persistent style in the centre. The 

 lower part enclosed in the calycine tube is thin and some- 

 what membranous. The valves do not always separate. 



