COLLECTIONS OF 191 4. 
73 
membranous bracts that enclose the seed. Though lovely, it is 
not nearly so profuse nor so dazzlingly attractive — a big lax bush 
of 8-10 feet, rather lank of habit, with abundance of scattered 
blossoms that have the value of appearing in early-mid- July. 
I know it only as a thing of rare occurrence, here and there on the 
coppiced slopes of the great Siku gorge in its uppermost reaches, 
at some 7,500-8,000 feet. This, rather than F 18, might perhaps 
be Potanin's D. elegans of the Mo-Ping ridge. 
Diphylleia sp. (F 284) is probably D. Grayi. It is common in cool 
rich places of the alpine woodland up the Border, and its 2-3 
feet racemes of big, blue-black berries have a great attraction 
above the magnificent peltate foliage in autumn. 
Diphylleia sp. (F 428) is much more doubtful and much more 
interesting. Here the spike is more graceful, and the foliage 
beautifully divided. Its attribution to Diphylleia is doubtful, 
and it has only been seen in one small mountain wood (also 
illustrated by Paeonia Veitchii) above Gahoba, in the last days 
of autumn. 
Disporum pullum (F 60) is a singularly beautiful woodland treasure, 
first seen on the Feng S'an Ling, and thence abounding sporadi- 
cally throughout the lower alpine forests of the Satanee-Gahoba 
district. It has all the branching habit of a Streptopus, and 
grows about 10-12 inches high, hanging out clusters of the 
most exquisite waxy Lapageria-blossoms, with golden anthers. 
These ring out their chimes in mid-May, and the growth after- 
wards develops and expands a little, replacing the flowers with 
bloomy black-blue berries in October. Obviously the treat- 
ment of Streptopus and Polygonatum ought handsomely to 
satisfy a beauty so nearly related, and delighting in the same 
rich, cool woodland conditions. Its effect is, indeed, more that 
of Uvular ia. 
Dracocephalum sp. (F 491) is a pretty, feathery-leaved, fine-growing 
species of 12-15 inches high, abounding in the hot loess banks 
about J6-ni, where it sends up graceful furry plumes of dark 
sapphire-blue blossoms, long and narrow, in July- August. 
Euonymus sp. (F 289). — This is an extraordinarily graceful and 
exquisite shrub of 18 inches, running up to 6-8 feet, with stiff and 
very fine long sprays, few in number, and scantily set with very 
narrow dentate leaves — suggesting in effect a starved and stiffened 
Willow, but that from each spray's end hang, on thread-like 
pedicels of 3-4 inches, huge 5-pointed stars of fruit that open 
in crimson plush, containing at each apex vermilion-glowing 
seeds of startling richness in the crimson star, which long out- 
lives the fall of the seed. This plant occurs sporadically down 
the border, in hedgerows and woodland ; the best specimen 
was seen in alpine coppice at Gahoba. 
Euonymus sp. (F 297) is of taller, thicker, bushier habit — in all 
respects a more commonplace bush, though with similar stars 
of fruit. 
