COLLECTIONS OF 191 4. 
107 
Rosa Banksiae (F 407), almost as sweet and brilliant as the last, 
forming mounded haycocks of snowy fragrance all over the hot 
lower coppice of the Feng S'an Ling, is perceptibly more arid 
and tropical in inclination than the last, and freely occurs in 
isolated specimens up the blazing valley of the Blackwater, 
differing in many points, and particularly in the tiny parsi- 
monious clusters of dull orange-chocolate fruits. 
Rosa sp. (F 463) is a big cluster-flowered pink briar of no great moment 
from the hedges of Satanee, and I can find no entry or number 
for another briar, sent (as I believe) in an earlier lot, with the 
remark that it is no improvement on a fine large pink Penzance, 
with curious long bottle-shaped fruit. [It was sent as F 298, a 
number really belonging to Betula Bhojpatra.] 
Rubus.- — Nothing will induce me to plague people with the countless 
huge and hideous brambles that infest every Chinese hedgerow 
with their fright fulness. Of these we already rejoice in a suffi- 
ciency; I send only R. sp. F 281, a pleasant plant of alpine 
scrub on Thundercrown and the Min S'an, being precisely a 
neat R. Idaeus, with large, long, and very delicious Raspberries 
of orange-yellow. [I hope it may not prove R. xanthocarpus , that 
profitless weed.] 
Salix sp. (F 419) is our only notable Willow, and this only becomes 
notable in the far " back-end " of the year. It is a small tree 
of 15-18 feet, growing in the moister folds of the upland valleys 
of Tibet, opposite J6-ni, where in November it so lavishly bedecks 
itself with white fluffs that the effect is precisely that of a white 
Almond or Peach in full bloom, and the sere enwintered coppice 
of the hillside looks from afar as if it were a fruit-orchard in 
spring, and strangely beautiful as the wintry sunshine touches 
those paradoxical beblossomed trees with a ghostly silver 
shimmer. 
Salvia sp. (F 169) is a magnificent herbaceous plant of 3-4 feet, 
abounding in the lower alpine turf of the Tibetan highlands 
away down to Satanee. It is a stalwart and stately grower, 
and in August bears large heads and whorls of large and very 
richly violet purple heads, promising our gardens a really valuable 
addition in this none-too-common colour [if only under cultiva- 
tion this did not always fade out to a pallid tone not so good as 
a Prunella's (1916)]. 
Salvia sp. (F 227) is very common in low, hot, dry places all up the 
Border. It is rather a rank and ugly thing, coarse and flopping, 
with voluminous flannelly foliage and weak stems of a foot or 
so, bearing loose spires of dim, baggy-belled flowers of vinous 
mauve in summer. 
Sambucus sp. (F 337) belongs to stony slopes at mid-elevations on 
Thundercrown &c. It is a herbaceous and very rampageous 
Elder of 3-5 feet, with ample foliage and big flat heads of 
white flower, which are followed by yet bigger flat heads of 
