298 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



western North America. Easily distinguished by its usually annual 

 duration, persistent white, membranous, old leaves, tall branched 

 growth, small flowers, beaded upper leaves and sepals, and peculiar 

 scales. 



Description. — A loosely tufted, glabrous, sub-deciduous annual or biennial. 

 Stems branched, decumbent or ascending, round, smooth, finely striate, shining, 

 dark brownish purple ; the barren ones short (2 to 4 inches) , with axillary branches 

 above, each bearing a lax rosette of leaves, the fertile ones 6 to 8 inches, leafy, with 

 terminal cymes. Leaves of barren stems alternate, entire, sessile, fleshy, flat, 

 oblong- obovate, broad at the base but scarcely clasping, rounded or very bluutly 



Fig. 177. — 5. Someni Hamet. 



pointed at the apex, scarcely spurred, i by J inch, bright green ; those of the 

 flowering shoots half as large, obovate, margins beaded, decreasing upwards 

 into similar bracts, the lower ones at flowering time dry, membranous, and white. 

 Inflorescence of 3 erecto-patent, forked branches with flowers in the forks, rather 

 flat-topped, 1 to 2 inches across, lowest flower shortly stalked, the rest sessile. 

 Buds ovate, bluntly pointed. Flowers rather small and inconspicuous, y\ '^^^ 

 across, greenish yellow. Sepals unequal, obovate-oblong, obtuse (Hamet) or 

 apiculate, beaded on the edges, shortly spurred, bright green, about equalling the 

 petals, wide-spreading in bud. Petals yellow, wide-spreading, ovate, subacute 

 to acuminate, -^-^ inch long. Stamens 5 (sometimes 10), { as long as the petals, 

 yellow, the epipetaious ones inserted near the base of the petals. Scales small, 

 greenish, narrowly linear in lower half, almost cordate in upper half. Carpels green, 

 erect, equalling the stamens, narrowing into short styles, stigmas capitellate. 



Flowers July-August (cold frame and gentle heat). Not hardy. 



Habitat. — Yunnan. Grown from seed collected in 1915 by 

 Rev. E. E. Maire about Tong-tchouan, 2,900 metres elevation, and 

 flowered at Glasnevin in 1916 and 1917. 



