THE GARDENERS’ MAGAZINE. 
J U, 1913. 
THE GARDENS OF ASIA ; 
SOME NEW ALPINES FROM TIBET. 
Is it not strange that many of the most 
beautiful and aelicately-toimed dowers 
should inhabit the most savage mountains 
in the world, where, blasted by the howling 
wimls, hammered by the pitiless rains, 
they yet spring up boldly amongst the 
rocks, and star the grass-covered slopes 
with spots of colour all the brief summer 
through, till the snow creeps down and 
covers them with a warm blanket, and the 
wind rattles their skeletons in vain! It is 
as though the monarchs of the mountains 
were alone worthy to stand watch and 
ward over the greatest treasures of the 
‘earth; as though nojie but the fieroesc 
storms could breed so pure and noble a 
race of plants. 
More than a year ago I climbed some 
of those desolate mountains which stretch 
away, range beyond range, from Western¬ 
most China into Tibet. Above was the 
silence of eternal snow; far below the 
rivers foamed and thundered over the 
rocks, smashing their way southward 
through endless gorges to the plains 
beyond. But here, all round us, were grand 
forests of fir and giant rhododendrons, of 
elder, birch, and bamboo; meadows of al¬ 
pine grasses and stately flowers; and, still 
higher, stretching up towards the vast 
Bnowfields, a wealth of scattered gems, most 
brilliant of all flowers, painting with many 
colours a world of grey rock. 
Those who delight in alpines and rock 
gardens will have seen some of these very 
plants this year, for many of them were 
on the market, as well as at the chief 
shows. A few I havp seen again my¬ 
self, growing in the qui^t Cheshire nurse¬ 
ries of Bees, Lim., as well as in the Edin¬ 
burgh Botanic Gardeqp—surroundings so 
different to those in which I had first found 
them that I scarcely recognised them as 
the same. Much as I love our English 
gardens, with their splendid array of hardy 
plants, spring, summer, and autumn, I 
must confess that, since fortune has taken 
me there, I love these plants even more 
in their wild haunts. 
Throughout the brti&f Til^tan summer 
the very high alpine regions towards the 
extreme limit of flowering plants prove 
the happiest hunting ground. 
Here is the neat little Primula bella, 
starring the grassland with its lovely pur¬ 
ple flowers; the blue Primula brevifolia, 
with tall, loose umbels; and, most mag¬ 
nificent of all, P. dryadifolia, flaming in 
crimson patches on the limestone rocks. 
None of these are known in cultivation, 
though the last-named has been success¬ 
fully raised at the Edinburgh Botanic 
Gardens. 
In July the Cambridge-blue Meconopsis 
speciosa is flowering at an altitude 
of about 16,000 feet. What a won¬ 
derful sight to see this plant in full 
bloom, a stem about eighteen inches high 
bearing a raceme of eight or ten brilliant 
pale blue flowers, each an inch and a-half 
across, massed with golden stamens in the 
centre! Unfortunately, the meconopses, 
though perfectly hardy in this country, are 
not perennial. 
Lower down is the Oxford-blue Meconop¬ 
sis Wardii, a new species, named after the 
writer; it has, however, black instead of 
golden stamens, which detracts consider¬ 
ably from its beauty. A third species, 1 
’ - bluish-viol 
_^ ^ M. 
rudis, a dwarf plant, with bluish-violet 
flowers, occurs on the alpine grassland at 
16,000 feet, and all three species should be 
seen in England next year. 
Down in the valleys, at 12,000 feet, the 
season opens as early as the middle of May 
with a few shade plants, amongst which 
we may nottice Primula sonchifolia, a damp- 
loving plant, bearing close heads of large 
blue flowers with a yellow eye. Higher 
up, and consequently flowering rather 
later, is P. pulchella, another dwarf, with 
mauve flowers. 
In June we can ascend above the forest 
limit, where, in the track of the melting 
snow, we may come across marshy ground 
scattered with the magenta P. Souliei, an 
anomalous species, each stem bearing a 
single large, slightly irregular flowei’. Here 
there will be a host of magnificent alpines, 
amongst which it will be sufficient to men¬ 
tion the sulphur Meconopsis integrifolia, 
already in cultivation in this country; the 
somewhat similar M. pseudo-integrifolia, 
recently lost to civilisation, and now again 
restored; Primula nivalis, a beautiful spe¬ 
cies, known only from a few plants raised 
in St. Petersburg Botanic Garden; and 
the pink Fritillaria Souliei. 
It will be well to point out here that 
Western China is peculiarly rich in fine 
primulas. These flowers, which scarcely 
occur in the New World, and are but 
poorly represented in the Alps, have two 
great centres of distribution in Asia, one 
in the Himalayas, and the other in the 
province of Yunnan. 
At the end of the summer the primulas 
will have all gone, and instead there will 
be, particularly at high altitudes, a wealth 
of saxifrages and gentians, forming the 
autumn flora. Saxifraga negroglandu- 
losa which occurs in large tufts on Ihe 
limestone rocks may serve as a type of 
the numerous yellow-flowered saxifrages, 
and Gentiana sikkimensis of the blue al¬ 
pine gentians. But by far the most bril¬ 
liant of the latter is G. ornata, with its 
long, trumpet-shaped corollas radiating 
out from a centre; a mass of these lying 
prostrate on the rocks is indescribably 
glorious. In this country the plant has 
hitherto only been raised at the Edinburgh 
Gardens. 
Then there are the various cremantho- 
diums, with delicate nodding flowers, 
mauve or yellow. They grow in damp, 
shady places, and set so little good seed 
that it. is almost impossible to raise, them 
this. way. 
Androsace spinulifera, with mk^ve 
heads of pink flowers, and the p^rless A. 
Bulleyana, with smaller heads of carmine 
flowers, have been successfully raised in 
England, though neither ig-*yet known to 
the public; but the unique Isopyrum gran- 
diflorum, a limestone plant, bearing masses 
of semi-j>endant, delicate violet flowers, has 
defied almost every attempt to raise it 
from seed. 
The curious labiate Phlomis rotata, with 
four large cruciate leaves lying flat on the 
ground, should make a first-rate rock 
plant, and Primula sibirica, which is not 
unlike the beautiful P. malacoides in colour 
and habit, should also become popular. 
The twining Codonopsis oonvolvulacea. 
which has been successfully grown at Edin- 
burgh, and the dwarf blue Aconitum 
Hookeri, are also worthy of mention. 
In the above list of alpines I have men¬ 
tioned but a score of the best which I col. 
lected in Tibet last year. Not one of these 
is known in cultivation in England to-day. 
but next year may see some of them addwi 
to our gardens. 
F. Kingdon Ward, B.A. 
BARREN FERNS, 
Normally, of course, all ferns \wi\r their 
reproductive bodies, the spores, in one w ay 
or another, though they contrive to do 
this in various fashions, some in the shape, 
of dots, lines, or patches, or even, as in 
the Staghorn Ferns (Platyoerium) in evenly- 
spread masses all over the backs of spe¬ 
cialised fronds. Others, like our Royal 
Ferns and many exotics, have parts of 
their fronds specialised to bear spi>res only, 
while others, like our Blechnum spicant, 
and the Lomarias, bear them on erect 
fronds of narrower type tlian the fertile 
ones. 
Ferns, therefore, which are persistently 
barren can only be regarded as abnormal, 
and sucli barienness is almost always asso¬ 
ciated with some further peculiarity. As 
a general rule the suppression of spore pro- 
duction seems to be co-related with in¬ 
creased foliar development, the energy of 
reproduction being diverted in that direc¬ 
tion. The spore heaps are always, and 
naturally, developed on, and by, the vein 
system of supply, and, equally naturally, 
if the system of feeding-veins is relieved 
of the exhausting function of forming and 
nourishing many millions of spores, given 
healthy conditions^ those veins, whose other 
function is the construction and nourish¬ 
ment of mere leafage, have, as a result, 
the more energy at their disposal for this 
purpose 
We may illustrate tliis by tlie fori^ 
of Scolopendrum crispum, or the Frilled 
Hartstongue. Of these there are two sec¬ 
tions—the crispum proper, or the perfwtlv 
barren one, and the fertile crispums, which 
are sparsely fertile, and reproduce 
selves truly when sown from. With the 
crispum proper, the frills are perfecth 
regular, with even, or, it may be, regu¬ 
larly crenate, edges. The seedlings of the 
fertile crispums in their juvenile stage are 
equally regular, but no sooner do i ley 
commence to show the spore heaps th‘'*b ** 
precisely the same ratio, the frills am 
regular edges suffer. This is simply 
cause we shall find, on examination, ^ 
the furcate veins which, in the true cri 
pums, go right to the frond edges ai n 
form the frills by forking again and agai^ 
in the fertile crispums they are P , 
halfway by having to form, a.nd f^, . 
spores, and, being thereby gv 
to reach the edges, and do what we 
term “ crispum duty as well. . 
In the Polypodium faiuily, we 
cambricum forms, which are ^ * 
barren, and in these we see the P gv 
menon of diverted reprodiictive 
with the result that while tlie 
tile frond is only pinnate, or 
these barren ones are greatly wi 
divided again and again. ’ both 
ever, is fully capable of undertaknig 
taste, viz., great foliar ^ay 
dated with spore production, on ■ 
be taken as a rule that the of 
related with, at any rate, ^ 
the latter, if not with entire dis^I^ 
It is, however, a curious fa^ 
faculty of cresting which involves 
