tltfe 3l^t)otiobenbron ^ccietp potest. 
One of the Wilson numbers for discolor is 885, and Houlstonii flowers two 
months or so before discolor. 
Wilson found R. Houlstonii in woods in Western Hupeh. 
R. VERNicosuM, Franchet. 
[syn. R. LUCIDUM, Franchef], 
Under the name of R. lucidum this plant was originally described by Franchet 
in the Journal de Botanique for 1895, p. 390. Finding afterw'ards that the 
name “ lucidum ” had already been used by Nuttall for another species, he, 
three years later, changed the name to vernicosum (see Journ. de Box., 1898, 
p. 258). A plant was obtained for the Kew collection from Messrs. Veitch 
under Wilson’s number 1777, which flowered in early May last year. IMessrs. 
Wilson and Rehder in the Plant.® Wilsonian®; i., p. 541, make it the same as 
R. DECORUM. This I cannot agree with. In the first place the stamens are 
glabrous, a character which brings it nearer Fortunei than decorum ; its 
coroUa is more beU-shaped, and its leaves are of a different shape, being pro¬ 
portionately shorter and broader. Forrest collected it in N. Yunnan in 
May, 1906, his specimens being numbered 2190 and 2222. There is a picture 
of it in the Gardeners’ Chronicle for February 19th, 1910, reproduced from 
a photograph by Forrest, and in the accompanjfing note we are told that it was 
then growing and approaching the flowering state in the Edinburgh Botanic 
Garden. 
The larger leaves are 4 inches long and 2J inches wide, oval, terminated by 
a mucronate tip and rounded or sHghtly cordate at the base ; the stalk is often 
over 1 inch long, and considerably longer in proportion to the blade than that 
of DECORUM. The flowers are in trusses of six to eight, the corolla six or seven- 
lobed, 2 to 3 inches wide, white to rosy-pink and widely beU-shaped. Ovar)', 
style and flower stalk are glandular. Forrest describes it as a shrub of spreading 
habit, 10 to 25 feet high. It was first discovered by Souhe, in E. Szechuan, 
in 1893. 
R. DISCOLOR, Franchet. 
[syn. R. Kirkii, Hort.]. 
To those of us who live in the cooler parts of the country^ I think R. discolor 
will prove to be one of the most useful of all the new species from China. Of the 
Fortunei group it is in my opinion the finest. First discovered by the French 
missionary, Farges, in E. Szechuan, it was introduced by Y’ilson about the 
beginning of this century, when collecting for Messrs, ^'’eitch. By^ them it 
was distributed under the Wilson number 885. It has the largest flowers of all 
the Fortunei group, and last year I measured some quite 4 inches in diameter. 
They vary in colour from a shell-pink to quite rosy-pink. Compared with 
R. Fortunei, the plant is more open and tree-hke in habit (Ydlson found it up 
to 20 feet high), and its leaves are usually narrowly tapered at the base. In the 
botanical characters of the flower it does not differ much, having the same 
glandular ovary and style and the same glabrous stamens ; the caly'^x, howev^er, 
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