l68 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
spine-pointed bracts, which become very small on the branches. Inflorescence 
a dense, very leafy, p5rramidal or oblong panicle, extending from near the .base of 
the stem to its apex, and about 2 inches wide • lower branches ascending, upper 
patent ; ultimate bracts minute, subtending the pedicels, which equal or exceed 
the flowers, and are thickest under the calyx. Buds ovate-oblong, white tipped 
pink. Flowers very numerous, \ inch across, starlike. Calyx cup-shaped, green 
dotted with purple, segments ovate, apiculate, very fleshy, divided to the base. 
Corolla thrice the calyx, funnel-shaped near the base, patent above, petals J inch 
long, lanceolate, acute, with ascending tips, white inside, outside keeled and 
mottled with red and green near the tip. Stamens spreading, slightly shorter 
than the petals, filaments white, anthers deep purple, the epipetalous ones 
inserted near the base of the petals. Scales pale yellow, spreading, retuse, oblong, 
twice as long as broad, equalling the stalk of the carpels. Carpels nearly equalling 
the petals, white, tapering into slender divergent styles, abruptly contracted 
below into a slender stalk, turning rosy in fruit. 
Flowers September-October (August in China). Not hardy. 
Habitat. — China : Kansu ; Pe-che-li. 
The sub-globose spiny buds of flat, cuneate-spathulate leaves 
which, in cultivation, appear to be produced at irregular periods, 
probably represent a winter state, and are evidently a resting stage. 
I have had young plants from Mr. Farrer and from Edinburgh ; the 
fine flowering specimen figured was sent by Mr. E. A. Bowles. 
The quite inadequate description of Leveille (loc. cit.) led me to 
consider Mr. Farrer's No. 336 from Kansu as distinct from Chaneti, 
especially when the author of the latter subsequently (Bull. Geogr. 
Bot., 27, 74, 1917) identified his plant with S. spinosum Thunberg 
{Cotyledon spinosa Linn.), a quite different plant with a very dense 
raceme, well known in gardens and in herbaria ; but access to the type of 
Chaneti in the Leveille herbarium now at Edinburgh, shows the identity 
of his plant and mine, so his name stands for this remarkable species. 
The following notes supplied by Mr. Reginald Farrer on the 
plant in its native surroundings are of interest : 
" Though on roofs in other places, as at Lanchow, I saw isolated 
plants suggesting No. 336 in very poor form, I am certain of my plant 
only at and about Siku, abounding on the flat roofs in solid sheets 
of foliage, very beautiful in their glaucous metallic sheen. I remember 
particularly how it filled every gully between the tiled ribs of the big 
military yamen, and how, on the roof of my pony-stall, it made in 
August a dense jungle of its upstanding stocky spires of white stars — 
no doubt in character far surpassing all that even Bowles' plant was 
able to produce, and in appearance most suggesting 8-inch spikes of 
Saxifraga longifolia, on a small, starved scale of blossom. Really a 
striking plant, but not, I fear, likely to prove hardy or resistant with 
us. For it thus loves only the hottest and poorest soils and rocks, 
in the hot, dry region of the Blackwater River's bed ; and though it 
ascends from Siku (6,400) another 2,000 feet on the mountains, where 
it is sporadic on very hot rocks, it nowhere ascends within reach of 
the alpine zone. Its kindred vegetation is Lilmm tenuifolium, Con- 
volvulus tragacanthoides, Lepiodermis virgata, Hedysarum muliijugum, 
Incarvillea variabilis, and the Asters hispidus and oreophilus. I 
should add that in nature it is certainly not monocarpic, but each 
plant forms a close and ample agglomeration of rosettes, from which 
