Chap. XI. 
FLOWERS. 
185 
and nurserymen were amongst my daily visitors, 
and rarely arrived without bringing me something 
which I gladly bought and transferred to my 
temple garden. 
About the middle of May the now well-known 
Paubumia imperialis was in full bloom in the grounds 
of a temple adjoining that in which I was located. 
Here it forms a tree about thirty feet in height ; the 
stem is generally bare, but branches out at the top, 
and each branch terminates in a spike of large, 
lilac, foxglove-like flowers. The varieties of pinks 
are numerous and beautiful in this part of Japan, 
and they also were in bloom about this time. They 
are remarkable for their large blossoms of various 
hues, some being of the most brilliant red and 
scarlet, while others are coloured much like ,our 
own. The finest poppies I ever saw were met with 
in gardens adjoining the Imperial highway. The 
Japanese do not smoke opium like their friends in 
China, but I believe the seeds of the poppy are 
largely used by them for medicinal purposes. The 
double-flowering kinds have blossoms of great size, 
of many different colours, and are highly orna- 
mental. 
But the plant remarkable above all others which 
were met with at this time, for its great beauty, 
was a new primrose.* I shall never forget the 
morning on which a basketful of this cha rmi ng 
plant was first brought to my door. Its flowers, 
* Primula Japonica. 
