360 Prain. — A Review of the genera 
It resembles still more closely M. Wallichii, with which it agrees not only in shape 
of leaves but in shape of capsule and style, and living examples were in 1884 treated 
by Sir J. D. Hooker as the basis of his M. Wallichii, var. rubrofusca. It has recently 
been stated (Flora and Sylva, iii. 85) that a large proportion of seedlings from home- 
saved seed of M. Wallichii, which has blue flowers, often turn out as shades of 
dirty purple and brown. If this observation were confirmed — it is not, however, 
stated on what or on whose authority it is made — it would appear as if M. Wallichii 
were not even varietally separable from M. napaulensis . At Kew, however, the 
writer is informed by Mr. Irving, the occurrence reported only happens when 
seed is taken from plants of M. Wallichii which have been growing alongside of 
plants of M. napaulensis ; otherwise both plants come true to seed. The two 
are undoubtedly representative species, but M. napaulensis appears to cease in 
western Sikkim where M. Wallichii begins. 
M. napaulensis appears to have been known in European gardens before 1831. 
At all events, G. Don was aware that there were two Nepalese plants, one with yellow, 
the other with red flowers, so like each other in general appearance that he felt 
constrained to treat them as forms of a single species, Siylophorum paniculatum. 
Seeds of both may quite well have reached Europe from Nepal with the other 
seeds that we know from various sources to have been dispatched from that country 
by Wallich. When the nature of Wallich’s herbarium specimens of the two plants 
is considered, it is not conceivable that G. Don could have learned, certainly D. Don 
six years previously did not know, that there were both yellow-flowered and red- 
flowered paniculate poppies in Nepal, unless living examples had somewhere and 
somehow come under his notice. There is, however, no definite record of the 
flowering of M. napaulensis in Europe till 1884, when a plant, raised from seed 
sent from Sikkim by Sir G. King, flowered with the late Mr. Wilson at Weybridge. 
Since that date M. napaulensis has become well established in English gardens. 
Apparently always monocarpic. 
25 . Meconopsis Wallichii, Hook. Folia radicalia pinnatipartita caulina 
pinnatifida laxe pilis barbellatis simulac dense indumento stellato induta ; 
sepala dense stellato-tomentosa rarius etiam laxe strigosa ; flores coerulei 
in cymas paniculatas dispositi ; capsula valvis 5-7 primum appresse deinde 
patenter setosa ; stylus elongatus subcylindricus (PI. XXIV, Fig. 6). 
Hook., Bot. Mag., t. 4668 (1852); Jard. Fleur., iii. t. 315 (1853); Belg. 
Hortic., iv. t. 18 (1854); FI. des Serres, viii. t. 735 (1855); Hook. f. & 
Thoms., FI. Ind., 254 (1855); Walp., Ann., iv. 171 (T857) ; Hook. f. 
& Thoms., FI. Brit. Ind., i. 119 (1872) omnes partim et quoad exemplum 
sikkimense floribus coeruleis prolatum sed exemplo nepalensi (Wall. Cat., 
8123/b = Polychaetia paniculata , Wall.), cui flores lutei, excluso ; Dym. 
Ward. & Hoop., Pharmacogr. Ind., i. 112 (1889) ; Prain, Journ. As. Soc. 
Beng., lxiv. 2. 318 (1895) ; Flora and Sylva, iii. 84 c. ic. (1905). 
Himalaya ORIENTALIS. Sikkim, Chumbi et Bhutan ; in pratis 
alpinis, 10-12,000 p. s. m. CHINA OCCIDENT ALIS. Szechuen ; in pratis 
alpinis, 12,000 p. s. m. 
