do not change to a brownish red, nor fall off entirely or in 
part previous to the expansion of the blossom, as they do in 
that. The corolla is here of a violet red or purple, not of a 
pale rose colour as there. «, upon the whole, is a finer va- 
riety than 8, the common, one. 
The species is distributed over a great part of Siberia, 
and:has been observed to extend itself through the deserts 
of Mogol Tartary to China and Tibet. It grows very com- 
monly in the pine-forests; and in some parts in such pro- 
fusion, and-so densely, as to make whole tracts appear a 
sheet of purple in April and May, the period when it is in 
blossom. 'The leaves are sometimes used as a substitute for 
those of the Tea-tree. The new foliage is put on after the 
departure of the bloom. 
A shrub, from three to six feet high; trunk, short 
knobbed thick, rounded at the root in the form of a 
tuber; bark, ash-coloured ; branches, straight upright 
round and wandlike, with gradually decrescent branchlets, 
closely leaved at the summit, where they are downy and 
resinously dotted ; /eaves, aromatic, leathery, ovally oblong, — 
dark green, emarginately obtuse, thickly punctured on 
both sides, shining on the upper, paler on the other with 
furfuraceous dots, twice as broad as they are long or more, 
shortly petioled, often revolute at the sides. Flowers, at the 
ends of the last year’s branchlets, nodding, generally issu- 
ing singly from a green scaly bud; peduncle, shorter than 
the corolla, pustulous and wrinkled. Cal. a thick roundish 
obsoletely five-cornered fleshy button or knob, of the same | 
colour as the peduncle, of which it looks like the summit 
dilated. | Corolla subbilabiately rotate, shortly narrowed at 
the base, and externally five-cornered, half five-cleft, with’ 
rounded undulate segments, the upper ones forming the over- 
hanging lip; two lower nearer, smaller. Fi/aments unequal, 
longer-ones reaching above the edge of the corolla, blood-co= 
loured, declined, bearded towards the base. Anthers round- 
ish, black, opening by a double aperture at their summit, 
Style longer than the filaments, and of the same colour, 
smooth, filiform, thickening at the top; stigma an obtuse 
slightly dilated point, with five small indentations, of a black. 
purple colour. ee 
* Our variety is supposed to have been introduced twenty. 
years ago from Russia, by Mr. Thomas Bell. It is perfectly. 
hardy; but requires to be planted in bog-earth. The draw- 
ing was' made at the nursery of Messrs: Whitley, “Brame, 
and Milne; at Parson’s Green, in the beginning of March. 
