THE NEW YELLOW MECONOPS/S 
191 
THE NEW YELLOW MECON- 
OPSIS {M. mtegrijolid). 
Readers of Flora and Sylva will be 
interested in comparing the engraving 
of Messrs. Veitch's form of Meconopsis 
mtegrifoli a ^which. appears on this page, 
with Miss Mary Wroe's painting of my 
plant which appeared in the issue for 
last March — vol. 3, p. 80. I have several 
specimens of Messrs. Veitch's plant 
here at Neston, but I have never seen 
it in flower ; it seems however that 
there are very marked diflerences be- 
tween the two forms. In breadth of 
leaf ; in the character of the hairs ; in 
the presence or absence of a style below 
the stigma, they are unlike. I regret 
: however that the engraving does not 
j bring out what seems to me the most 
evident and important difference from 
a garden point of view, viz., that in my 
plant each flower is absolutely alone 
on a single stem, whereas in Messrs. 
Veitch's form a single branched stem 
bears a number of flowers springing 
from the leaf-axils at varying heights. 
In view of these things it seems 
reasonable to ask if these two markedly 
different plants are both really Mecon- 
opsis iniegrifolia. My only authority is 
that the packet of seed from which the 
plants were raised was sent me from 
the St Petersburg Botanic Gardens, and 
bore this name. It may easily be that 
Dr. Fischer de Waldheim's able lieu- 
tenants had only travel-injured dry 
specimens to deal with, or perhaps not 
even these, and had to rely chiefly on 
descriptions. In any case the matter 
will soon be settled, as I have sent one 
of my only two remaining plants to 
•Kew. The other is here and can easily 
be distinguished from a number of 
Messrs. Veitch's plants among which 
it is growing. In view of the real beauty 
of the plant it is almost ungrateful to 
add that Meco7iopsis ijitegrifolia in the 
form which I have seen here, seems 
to me less attractive than M. pa7iicu- 
lata or M. Wallichi^ and that I should 
i not dream of comparing it with the 
peerless M. aculeata. 
A. K. BULLEY, 
Neston, Cheshire. 
