54 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
cultivation in any healthy, open place. It has crisped, deeply 
dentate, incanescent foliage, and noble branching panicles of 
big blue bells, far better furnished and more elegant than in 
C. rhomboidalis. It abounds in the grass-lands of the Tao-RLver 
district, colouring the hillsides in August. F 354 is very 
similar, but appears shorter and stiffer in the spike. It hails 
from a different district, from the alpine herbage in the valley 
opposite to Satanee, and I have not seen it in flower. Finally, 
F 492 will probably not yet be distributed, as I think it may 
prove identical with F 235, being from the same region, a pinch 
of winter seed collected from the dried capsules on the crest of 
Monk Mountain. 
Allium. — In no race are the Alps of Kansu and Tibet more prolific. 
Of the commoner and cruder sorts I have taken little note, and, 
even among such as I have considered beautiful, the seed may 
sometimes yield confusion. F 165 is a narrow-leaved species 
with spraying heads of pink stars on stems of about 5 inches in 
high summer. It abounds in South Kansu, and in the sub- 
alpine turf above Siku, though it is possible that two species are 
concealed under one number here. Still more possible is it 
that even more species may be concealed under F 222, the 
most important of the lot. 
Allium cyaneum macrostemon.- — I greatly suspect that this name 
embraces several of the lovely bluebell-blue Garlics that so abound 
all over the Alps of South Kansu and Tibet, dotted freely in the 
hot alpine herbage (with close heads of colour), or forming mats on 
the ledges of cool limestone cliffs (with spraying heads of celestial 
stars), but always and everywhere, even on the highest ridges to 
which they ascend, objects of greatest charm and elegance and 
delight in August. It should not be easy to fail at home with 
A . cyaneum, already introduced by Potanin through Petrograd, 
but never yet fully realized in English gardens. F 258 occurs 
rather higher than typical A. cyaneum, in the alpine turf of 
the Min S'an. It is not a match for its blue rival, being a Garlic 
of 5 or 6 inches, with a tight round head of yellow blossoms in 
July and August. F 304 is not yet capable of distribution ; 
a bulb or two were sent home, but this pretty thing blooms so 
late in October that I was not able to get more than two or three 
doubtfully ripe seeds. It is a delightful little species, making a 
pair to the cliff -haunting form of A. cyaneum ; for it grows only 
on cool shady ledges of the limestone, where it forms mats, and 
sends up numbers of 3- or 4-inch stems, each carrying a loose, 
radiant head of a few soft pink stars. This is found about Siku, 
and about Siku too, the last, and perhaps the best, of this year's 
Garlics. F 305 is a high-alpine, only seen at some 12,000-12,500 
feet, growing in the upper slopes of the great limestone screes on 
Thundercrown, in very hard caky loam, overlaid with small 
chips. It may prove only a development of A. cyaneum [but 
