COLLECTIONS OF 191 4, 
8l 
Leptoderm^s virgata (F 260) belongs only to the very hottest and driest 
shingly banks or sheer cliffs away down the Blackwater, from 
all the loess downs about Siku at least as far south as Wen Hsien. 
It is a small shrub of inimitable grace, attaining, when let alone 
by goats, to 3-4 feet, but with its delicate stems bowed down 
beneath the long and lilac-like panicles of blossom that open 
in August, and are yet further enhanced by the microscopically 
fine, myrtle-like foliage in which the dainty cloudy mass is 
invested. It does not go far up the Nan Ho Valley, and will 
hardly be found with the last. 
Ligustrum spp. (F 412) are both perfectly doubtful in their names. 
F 412 has not been distributed, and is a tall 14-feet shrub 
with black fruits in racemes. It occurred about Kwanting in 
the Nan Ho Valley. 
Lilium sp. (F 183) has so far been sent only in a few non- 
distributable bulbs. It abounds all up the Tao-ho district, 
particularly delighting in steep shingly banks of loam amid 
light coppice, where its cold, bone-white Turk's caps have a 
glacial beauty amid the greenery in August, though dulled in 
detail by their freckling of fine crimson dots along the inner 
margins of the segments. 
Lilium sp. (F 316) is perhaps only L. longiflorum, but a form of 
such gigantic stature and vigour that I send it on the chance of 
its proving a useful new strain. Two plants were seen, both 
cultivated, in two cottage gardens just outside Siku, each sending 
up three spikes of 4-5 feet, laden with gigantic flowers and 
ultimately each rearing aloft a stiff candelabrum of seed-pods. 
The foliage appeared to be finer and more abundant than in most 
types of L. longiflorum, and approaching more in its whole style 
to that of L. regale. Neither specimen, however, was closely 
examined. (Could it perhaps be L. " Brownii" kansuense ?) 
Lloydia sp. (F 87) is lovely in all the cold crevices of the higher 
limestone cliffs, swinging out glassy bubble-bells of pearly white 
with dark lines, larger and fuller, and much more beautifully 
borne, than in L. serotina. [L. alpina was sent out in 1916 from 
the Da-Tung Alps.] 
LoniceraFarreri (F 46). — This is the one Lonicera (not of the Syringan- 
tha group) of which I can vouch for the flower's being beautiful. 
It is a very small, neat bush, with tiny myrtle-like foliage flattened 
on the sprays, from which depend great quantities of rose-pink 
bugles in May, to be followed by glowing rubies in October. This 
is a subspecies or form closely allied to a larger shrub not un- 
common in the Satanee Alps ; of this plant only two certain 
specimens are known, one from above Chago, and another (now 
mossed up at Lanchow) in the deep gorge behind Gahoba. 
Neither of these yielded seed ; and I have not dared to send 
out fruit under this number of any shrub of which I am not 
certain. 
vol. xlii. G 
