Tas. 7112 . 
PRIMULINA srnensis. 
Native of China. 
Nat. Ord. GEsNERACEX.—Tribe CyrTanpREx. 
Genus Paimunina, Hance in Brit. Journ, Bot. xxi. (1883) 169. 
Primvu.ina Tabacum, Hance l.c.; Clarke in DC. Monogr. Phanerog. vol. i. 
p. 288 (xomen); Hemsley in Journ. Linn. Soc. Bot. vol. xxvi. p. 229; 
Dewar in Gard. Chron. 1889, vol. ii. p. 357, £. 52. ~ 
With the habit and foliage in most respects of a Pri- 
mula, this singular plant possesses all the botanical 
characters of the family of Gesneracee, and, as Mr. Clarke 
has pointed out to me, its nearest allies are Klugia, Loxonia, 
and Rhynchostylis—from all which it differs in the salver- 
shaped corolla with nearly equal lobes. In Dr. Hance’s 
description of the genus, the disk is said to be absent; 
but it is really very highly developed as two large cuneately 
quadrate fleshy bodies at the base of the ovary. Mr. 
Hance describes Primulina as very delicate and difficult to 
rear in cultivation, and says of it that it is so wonderfully 
like a Primula even when in blossom, that it was only dis-. 
section which showed him that it was a Gesneracea. Mr. 
Henry, who communicated it to him, informed him that when 
alive the glandular pubescence exhales a powerful odour of 
tobacco, which it communicates to the hands of any one, 
touching it, and that it is universally known to the natives 
by the name of Shek-in, that is, Rock Tobacco. 
The figure here gjven is taken froma plant that flowered 
in the Royal Gardens, aided by Herbarium specimens com- 
_ municated. by Mr. Ford, and was raised from seed received 
from the Hong Kong Botanical Garden in 1887. It 
flowered in July, 1889, but did not seed. It is a native of 
Kwang Lung, Tali, on the Lienchau river, 270 miles from 
Canton. 
Desor. A low glandular-pubescent herb ; rootstock very 
short, emitting thick fibrous roots. Leaves all radical, 
crowded on the rootstock, petioled, rather fleshy, orbicular 
May ‘Isr, 1890. : 
