292 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



part of the plant except the stamens and the face of the petals. This 

 character and its flat, entire, rather rhomboid stalked leaves and 

 long-stalked yellow flowers readily distinguish it. 



Description. — Annual or biennial, soft, downy, very viscid. Stem slender, 

 erect, with many axillary ascending branches, dark red, densely clothed with 

 patent viscid hairs, 4 to 8 inches high. Leaves alternate, rosulate in young plants, 

 in flowering plants equalling or longer than the intemodes, stalked, soft, fleshy, 

 viscid-hairy on both sides ; petiole J inch long, lamina obovate trapezoidal, J inch 

 long, I inch broad, bluntly pointed, mostly tipped with a small purple dot. 

 Flowers many, yellow, subopposite the leaves or more rarely axillary, pedicels 

 slender up to \ inch long. Buds ovate, bluntly pointed, viscid-hairy, green or 

 streaked with red. Sepals lanceolate, acute, fleshy, green, viscid-hairy, wide- 

 spreading, not spurred. Petals linear-lanceolate, acute, -^^ inch long, on face 

 smooth, yellow, on back viscid-hairy and greenish dotted with purple, wide- 

 spreading, 2to2j times the sepals, erect, and persisting after flowering. Stamens 10, 

 yellow, f the petals, spreading. Scales small, broadly cuneate, minutely emar- 

 ginate, pale orange-yellow. Carpels slender, oblong, greenish yellow, erect. 



x2 



Fig. 173. — S. viscosum Praeger. 



visdd-hairy, free, save at the very base ; styles greenish, glabrous, spreading, 

 about as long as the stamens, nearly erect after flowering. 



Flowers June-August. Not hardy. 



Habitat. — Yunnan. 



My knowledge of this little plant is due to Rev. P^re E. E. 

 Maire, who sent me seed in 1915. His label runs : — " S^dum 

 annuel, gluant, rameux etale-tomenteux, fleurs jaunes. Murs 

 humides, ombrages, de Kin-tchong-chan, altitude 2,990 m." The 

 plant flowered at Kew, Glasnevin, and in my own garden in 1916 

 and 1917, behaving often as a biennial, but it is, no doubt, normally 

 annual in duration. 



It appears to resemble in many respects the northern race of 

 5. drymarioides Hance, as described by Maximo wicz {Bull. Acad. St. 

 Peiersbourg, 29, 155), but differs in its much larger, flat flowers and 

 other points. 



Similar differences separate it from S. stellariaefoUum Franch. 

 Specimens of 5. viscosum in the Edinburgh Herbarium have been 

 labelled S. drymarioides var. stellariaefoUum by Hamet, and possibly 

 it may prove best to treat drymarioides as an aggregate, with 

 StellariaefoUum, Esquirolii, and viscosum as segregates. 



Named after its viscid character, which is a very unusual 

 feature in the genus. 



