28 ARISTOCRATS OF THE GARDEN 



(L. regale, better known under the erroneous name of 

 L. myriophyllum), can withstand much desiccation 

 but these in a natural state have their foil of herbs and 

 scrub. 



Journey in thought with me, for a moment or two, 

 westward until "west" becomes "east" although we still 

 chase the setting sun. Across this continent, across 

 that broad ocean misnamed "Pacific," to Shanghai, 

 the gate of Far Cathay; onward and westward up the 

 mighty Yangtsze River for eighteen hundred miles, 

 then northward, up its tributary the Min, some two 

 hundred and fifty miles to the confines of mysterious 

 Thibet; to that little-known hinterland which sep- 

 arates China proper from the hierarchy of Lhassa ; to a 

 wild and mountainous country peopled mainly by 

 strange tribesfolk of unknown origin; to a land where 

 Lamaism, Buddhism, and Phallism strive for mastery 

 of men's souls ; to a region where mighty empires meet. 

 There in narrow, semi-arid valleys down which thunder 

 torrents, and encompassed by mountains composed of 

 mudshales and granites whose peaks are clothed with 

 snow eternal, the Regal Lily has its home. In sum- 

 mer the heat is terrific, in winter the cold is intense, 

 and at all seasons these valleys are subject to sudden 

 and violent windstorms against which neither man 

 nor beast can make headway. There, in June, by the 



