338 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [Sess. lxxix. 



moreover, sometimes denticulate. It is far more deserving 

 of a name than some to which particular names have been 

 attached. It has special interest because it seems to me to 

 lead us to the plant which Franchet described as 



P. oreodoxa, Franch. 1 (Plate LVI) 



This is one of the Moupin plants collected by the Abbe 

 David and described and figured by Franchet. 



It is true, as Franchet says, that the leaves resemble 

 those of P. cortusoides, Linn., but they do not speak to 

 affinity in the way the other characters do, and particularly 

 the calyx. These all seem to point to P. obconica, Hance. 

 The toothed sepaline lobes are distinctive — and, with other 

 characters, seem to separate this plant more than others 

 mentioned from the obconica type. But in P. barbicalyx, 

 C. H. Wright, we have an approach to the calycine lobing, 

 and I think I am right in placing this plant here as a 

 species of the obconico- Lister i alliance. I may add here 

 that the P. oreodoxa of gardens is not this plant. Siinder- 

 mann sent out a plant under the name which is often 

 met with, but is only P. saxatilis, Komarov. The true 

 P. oreodoxa, Franch., is not in cultivation. 



With this I conclude the series of illustrations through 

 which I have endeavoured to show some of the forms 

 through which P. obconica, Hance, with its centre of dis- 

 tribution in Western China, and P. Listeri, King, with its 

 area of spread in the Eastern Himalayas, pass. The record 

 is by no means satisfactory, because I am unable to deal 

 with the plants in relation to habitats. Such as it is, it 



1 Franchet in Nouvs. Arch, du Mus., Paris, ser. 2, x (1887), 55, t. 15, 

 f. B. Franchet's description and comments run : — 



" Rhizoma gracile, obliquum ; ex toto hirtella ; petiolus alato- 

 membranaceus limbo usque duplo longior ; limbus pallidus tenuiter 

 papyraceus, fere membranaceus, utraque facie sparse pilosus e basi 

 leviter cordata elliptico-ovatus, apice rotundatus, profunde crenatus, 

 crenis argute denticulatis ; pedunculi folia 2-3-plo superantes ; pedi- 

 celli 3-7 inaequales, calice subduplo longiores, bracteolis lineari-lanceo- 

 latis ; calyx e basi cuneata poculiformis, tubo pallidiore, ad tertiam 

 partem lobatus, lobis ovatorotundatis denticulatis ; corolla rubro- 

 violascens, tubo cylindrico calycem subduplo excedente, in limbum 

 cupulatum expan so, lobis obcordatis ; stamina paulo supra medium tubi 

 inserta ; capsula globosa intra calycis tubum inclusa. 



" Petioli 2-5 cent., limbo 2-5 cent., longo 2-3 cent, lato ; pedunculi 

 6-15 cent. ; pedicelli 1-2 cent. ; calyx circiter 7 mill. ; corolla 10-13 

 mill, longa, limbo 10-12 mill, diam." 



