58 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



Angustifolia, simplicifolia, bella, grandis, racemosa, 

 homdula, integrifolia, punicea, compose a grand total of 

 beauty very hard to beat, and also, I fear, rather hard to 

 enjoy. Very quick drainage, good deep, deep compost, — 

 rough, peaty, gritty, sandy, yet rich, — with an exposure 

 neither bleak nor overshadowed, make up my prescription 

 for these gorgeous exotic Poppies. Thriving in such 

 conditions I have young plants of racemosa (which 

 thrives anyhow, in ordinary soil), aculeata, grandis, 

 simplicifoUa, and integrifolia. Of course, I dare not 

 claim success until they have flowered. And then, I 

 greatly fear me, they will probably die. For these plants 

 are generally biennials, or, at least, have a tendency to be 

 monocarpous, that is, to die as soon as they have safely 

 flowered and set seed. Nor is seed, as a rule, very certain 

 to fill and be fruitful; nor, even so, is it particularly 

 easy to raise and rear. The easiest to deal with, pro- 

 bably, is integrifolia, whose enormous lemon-coloured 

 globes liave made the sensation of the Temple Show for 

 two years past. Punicea, to my taste, though not to 

 most people's, is even more attractive, with its pendulous, 

 great ragged-looking blooms of a deep, obscure scarlet. 

 It is more possibly perennial than integrifolia, which is 

 frankly monocarpous, but seeds very fairly well. 



As for simplicifoUa — there, indeed, is all my hope 

 stored. It is said to be the counterpart of integrifolia, 

 but with flowers of a soft, clear blue. Ask what our 

 Expedition thought of it when first they sighted Holy 

 Lhasa and the Golden Mounbain of the Potald, with the 

 clear blue of heaven above, and the clear blue of Meco- 

 nopsis simplicifoUa filling all the foreground. My young 

 plants seem strong in growth, and are now in bud, but 

 what frightens me is the uncertain colouring of these 

 blue Poppies. Wallichii, besides its azure glories, pro- 

 duces seedlings of every dull shade of brown and mauve ; 



