8o 
FLORA AND SYLVA 
simple (an older race even than botan- 
ists) — to do our work next, which is to 
select the new and beautiful from such 
collections, adapting them to our soils, 
our wants, and our tastes, and above all 
to get from them natural and picturesque 
effects; and in this way we have much 
to do. 
MECONOPSIS : WITH A PLATE 
OF MECONOPSIS INTEGRI- 
FOLIA.* 
This is a new plant as to whose garden 
value it is not possible yet to say any- 
thing definite. The doubtful factor is 
its seeding power. My plants were raised 
from seed collected by the Koslov Ex- 
pedition in Central Asia. Messrs Veitch 
owe theirs to Mr Wilson's collections 
in the China-Thibet borderland. My 
plants, even with artificial pollination, 
have so far failed to produce good seed; 
and from Messrs Veitch's recent adver- 
tisements of "seed gathered in China," 
it seems possible that they have had no 
better luck in their drier and more 
southern position. This is of course of 
no importance while Chinese seed can 
be had ; but a collector in China is an 
expensive affair, and, in default of Chin- 
ese seed we may find ourselves hope- 
lessly in love with a plant which dies 
after flowering, and cannot be propa- 
gated. For the plant itself I have nothing 
but praise. Not the least of its merits 
is that it is best in the open air, the 
colour coming poorer and paler under 
glass. Hardy in constitution ; caring 
nothing for frost; alpine in stature and 
habit ; almost as desirable for its silky 
foliage as for its magnificent flowers ; 
Meco?iopsis integrijolia charms at once 
all who see it. But — is it going to be a 
permanency ? Can we produce in Eu- 
rope the conditions of Central Asia? 
The fact is that, with one notable 
exception, there is a fatal strain of in- 
security about the Meconopsids. We 
give them our devotion as we give it to 
the Oncocychis Irises, with a feeling of 
reasonable certainty that we are going 
to lose them. The very delicacy of 
their beauty seems to convey a warning. 
M. ijitegi^ifolia refuses to seed. M. 
JVallichi usat its best that particu- 
lar shade of blue, which is to some of 
I us the most desirable of all colours. 
But it is liable to deteriorate into washy 
I puces quite passing endurance. M. ne- 
palensis true (probably not now in culti- 
vation) , is worth growing for its foliage 
alone, but the flowers approximate to 
Gera?iiu7n phceum at its worst. M. 
I aculeata is surpassed in beauty by no 
j flowering plant. The groundwork of 
j its colour is the blue of Delphinium 
Belladonna^ the surface dusting is milk, 
i and the central boss of stamens the 
j colour of old gold. But in the third 
1 generation you will hardly get good 
I seed. The perennial M. grandis^ here 
i at Neston at any rate, under the damp 
j Cheshire skies, refuses to disclose its 
beauty out of doors. If the wonderful 
iridescence of its petals is to be fully 
displayed, it must be flowered under 
glass. M. paniculata^ as perfect in yel- 
j low as aculeata and Wallichi are in 
I blue, is perhaps the most reliable of the 
j Himalayan kinds, and the first flowers 
j to open generally give a little good seed. 
Drawn by Miss M. Wroe from a plant in Messrs A. Bee & Co.'s nursery at Neston. 
