REPORT OF WORK IN 1915 IN KANSU AND TIBET. 333 
Dracocephalum Purdomii (F 571) stands close to D. bidlatum. 
It makes a specially fine effect in the Da-Tung Alps (where it is universal 
in all the alpine region) when it forms into drifts in the damp flat 
mud-shores beside some of the little alpine becks ; and from the mass 
of bullate leaves arise in July the copious profusion of six-inch stems 
with their tiers of large dark- violet dragons' heads. Just opposite 
Wolvesden House, among the alder coppice, the collateral becks were 
full of it, and alternative beds of butter-yellow Lousewort made a 
notable contrast, assisted by yet other beds of the dimmer yellow 
Corydalis dasyptera. (Painting and photograph.) 
Ephedra sp. (F 572) was evidently also sent in 1914 as " unknown 
seed " (F 483). We now know it for a denizen of dry rocks and river 
shingle-flats, where it forms close masses of wiry horse-tail foliage, 
unnoticeable in leaf or flower, till in August they become a solid sheet 
of colour, with their abundance of rosy-scarlet bloomy fruits, in 
beauty hardly to be surpassed. Evidently hot, dry, poor places are 
indicated. 
Erysimum sp. (F 521, 522). — It is possible that neither of these 
is Erysimum at all, and it is certain that they cannot both be. F 521 
is the rarer of the two, and I know it best high up in the grass in one 
fold of the fell above Wolvesden House, in Southerly Valley, at some 
12,000 feet or more. It flowers in a dense mass of lilac-violet flowers, 
tucked close upon the rosette and deliciously fragrant of cloves ; in 
development the system a little lengthens, and the pods are very long 
and quite narrow, hardly to be recognized as having belonged to so 
concise a beauty as had squatted so tightly there in June. F 522 is 
perhaps even more charming. (Photograph.) Here the whole growth 
is softly downy, and the stalk rises to some five inches before unfold- 
ing its head of much warmer rose-pink blossom, differently"; but no less 
ravishingly scented, and in their tight round heads, on stalwart little 
stems, making one always think of some fine sturdy Primula, as 
they perk up everywhere in early July from the sere brown turf of 
the highest lawns and bottoms. This also is local, but more abundant 
and widely distributed in the alps about Wolvesden. Both species 
had much better be treated as monocarpous, though 522 is perhaps 
less certainly and invariably so, at home, than its predecessor. And 
F 522 differs from the other in having fat round-oval pods, on stems 
and footstalks no more developed than in flowering time. 
Gentiana. — In this great race the northerly ranges of the Da-Tung 
are conspicuously more abundant than the southerly ones of 191 4. G. 
Przewalskyi occurs commonly on the lower loess, though in much less 
handsome and sapphirine form than about Choni (F 303). There is a 
much larger counterpart, flopping and straggling, with cream-white 
flowers, which abounds also in the lower regions (photograph) ; high 
up there is a straw-yellow annual star, also seen last year ; and many 
monocarpic little things that often sheet the fine moist alpine lawns 
in constellations of pale blue or mauve or electric blue, from May to 
August. The last flower of the whole year was even a Gentian, a 
