94 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
before the full expansion of the leaves.* Hitherto the most 
northern species of the group has been P. Engleri, which is rare 
in the alps of Szechwan, very far to the south ; the nearest 
relation to P. Viola-grandis, P. Delavayi, lives yet further to 
the south, on the flanks of Tsang-S'an, and differs, inter alia, 
in having its stems beset with brown membranaceous bracts. 
Thus the whole depth of Szechwan intervenes between the older 
Omphalogrammas of Yunnan and their new cousin of Kansu. 
P. Viola-grandis has already been splendidly figured in the 
Gardeners' Chronicle, so I need not expatiate on its prognathous 
great blue-purple blossom, with ears laid stiffly back, and lip 
stuck stiffly out (but the bud opens a regular star of intense 
violet, lightening to a more lucent tone as it opens out and the 
segments set to work reflexing and protruding). It only remains 
to describe the enormous subsequent expansion of the foliage, 
which develops heart-shaped blades like those of a fat Viola hirta 
or V. odorata, but densely thick like flannel, of very dark opaque 
dusty green with paler veins, lying flopped about on the black 
soil, too heavy for the elongated fleshy footstalks of glandular 
pinkness. P. Viola-grandis may perhaps prove easier than its 
cousins ; but it has a very rigid choice of habitats. It is never 
found except up cool, westerly-facing, shady exposures of big 
limestone cliffs in the alps of Satanee and Thundercrown, hugging 
the underside of ledge-sods in clammy moist soil of loam or 
vegetable mould, and descending freely into the upper reaches of 
the Siku gorges, where they go lost at last in sombre inaccessible 
canons of gloom and dankness. Usually it is found in clumps 
here and there, its piercingly refulgent violet flames hovering like 
blue sparks of electricity in May from the gloomy walls — but in 
one station I know, higher up on the open alps of the Ridge, it 
so abounds in little western couloirs and on a little turfy saddle 
beneath the cliff, so runs riot in loam or red earth or peat-mould, 
and so gaily flickers in and out of the minute 3-inch Rhodo- 
dendron scrub, that those few and limited stations are all a 
shimmering dance of Violets in early summer, and there at least 
the plant gives better hope of a robust and hearty habit. As 
might be imagined from its preposterous flower and length of 
tube, it is a poor scant seeder, hardly five per cent, of the blooms 
(which are not by any means sent up from every crown either) 
resulting in the tall 6-8-inch seed-stem and its round capsule atop. 
I was late upon its final scene too ; so that the distribution of 
seed will have been sadly niggardly. However, I felt profoundly 
grateful and fortunate to get what I did, the four or five last 
capsules lingering on the mountain-side, with the seed lying 
loose in its saucer, at the mercy of any moment's flow of 
* P. Viola-grandis is much the smallest of the group ; the others resemble 
fat-throated Gloxinias more than anything else, while this does really recall a 
giant violet. 
