34$ JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Viola sp. (F 505) (V. chebsonensis) is a far exile from the Europe 
that no doubt originally gave it birth. For it is a form of V. tricolor, 
the prettiest I have ever seen, which must have been handed across 
China from abbey to abbey, in different developments, since first 
some friendly foreigner gave seed to Pu-to or Wu-tai or Peking ; till 
now this very attractive little pansy clings in the crannies of all the 
cloisters and yards of Chebson Abbey, away over the broken boundaries 
of Tibet. 
Viola sp. (F 547) is the yellow alpine violet that here replaces 
V. biflora on a finer scale in the upper mountain region of the Da-Tung. 
It has the advantage of an ample tufted habit, of very handsome 
dark hepaticoid foliage, and of a radiant display of innumerable 
brilliant golden violets ; so I hope the none-too-abundant seed may 
fare well, and that the plant will take kindly to some cool and shaded 
stony corner of the rock-garden. 
Zinnia elegans is F 768, and without doubt a garden-escape. But 
in some of the beck-shingles in Northern Szechwan it drew my atten- 
tion by the emancipated elegance of its habit, and by the profusion, 
on the pyramidal wildened plants, of smaller flowers than we know, 
in far greater daintiness of build, and of a wonderful velvety soft 
blood-colour that I have never met before. Seen thus, it was a 
charming thing, hardly to be recognized as owning any kinship with 
the repulsive stiff artificiality that is such a horror in gardens that 
admit it. 
Here, then, ends the list of my best -known and most interesting 
flowering plants of 1915. Let it be remembered, though, that this 
list makes no pretence at dealing with the further large quantity of 
striking but uncertain stuff collected out of flower or from unknown 
sources, and therefore awaiting cultivation before we can give them 
names or pronounce upon their merits. However, though many of 
these I do not doubt will prove of interest and value, it is on the 
flowering plants of the summer alone that for the present I can base 
my hopes of having contributed something of use to the garden. That 
the list is short I feel dreadfully aware ; at the same time, O gardener, 
you will find that it contains no weed ; and how easily could I, had 
I chosen, have swelled out the catalogue to fatness by burdening 
you with germs of all the worthless rubbish of which the Da-Tung 
Alps, like all others, are full ! But I have remained faithful to my 
promise and passion for quality ; though I confess I should have been 
better pleased with 1915 had its mountains provided me with 
quantity also. 
