growing in shade. All the specimens collected by the Abbé 
Delavay and Mr. Henry are small, some quite dwarf, with 
short, woody rootstocks; all have glandular (slightly 
sweet-scented) leaves, peduncles, and calyces, and very 
small flowers, with simply obcordate corolla-lobes. ; 
According to a statement in the Gardening World, 
December 17th, 1887, quoted by Mr. Sutton in his paper, 
the Chinese Primrose was first made known by a drawing 
sent in 1819 to the Horticultural Society of London by 
John Reeves, Esq., F.R.S., when Inspector of Teas for the 
Honourable East India Company at Macao. This led to 
the Society’s requesting Mr. Reeves to procure living 
plants or seeds, which he did. Seeds of two varieties 
were sent, both from Chinese gardens, one of which pro- 
duced small flowers, and simply obeordate corolla-lobes ; 
in the other these were wavy and crenate. At about the 
same time a living plant was brought home by a Captain 
Rawes, who gave it to Thomas Palmer, Ksq., of Bromley, 
Kent. This flowered in 1821, and was figured as Primula 
prenitens by Mr. Ker-Gawler, in the Botanical Register of 
that year; it has crenate corolla-lobes. In the same year 
Lindley published a figure of the same plant in _ his 
** Collectanea Botanica” as P. sinensis, Sabine. The form, 
with entire obcordate corolla-lobes, was first figured in 
1823, in Hooker’s “ Exotic Flora,” from a specimen that 
flowered in the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, obtained 
from the Horticultural Society of London. The same form 
was again figured in 1825, in this Magazine, with the 
observation that it was introduced by ‘I’. C. Palmer, Esq. tin 
Turning now to the specimen here figured, I am indebted 
for its history to Dr. Masters, who informs me that it is 
one of some seedlings which he saw in 1891, at Lady Hutt’s, 
Appleby Towers, Ryde, and which he at once recognized 
as being of the wild Primula sinensis. On inquiry he 
was told that the seedlings were raised from seed sent, 
it was believed, from Ichang. Having been given some of 
the seedlings, he passed them on to his friend Mr. Edmund 
Hyde, of Haling, who was in 1892 the first to flower the 
wild plant. In the Gardener’s Chronicle for that year Dr. 
Masters has given an excellent figure of this as “The wild 
form of Primula sinensis after one year’s cultivation.” 
Being a first year’s plant, no stem is represented ; this, 
