true plant of Forskahl has narrow involucral leaves, a calyx 
divided to below the middle into narrow lanceolate segments, 
and a corolla not one-third of an inch in diameter, with ovate 
truncate divisions. The second form is the P. Boveana of 
Decaisne (P. verticillata, Botanical Magazine, t. 2842), which 
differs from the type chiefly in the more obovate corolla- 
lobes, which are quite entire or obscurely crenate, and the 
irregularly toothed calyx divisions. It varies greatly in the 
size of the corolla and breadth and form of the involucral 
leaves, and is found near Muscat in Arabia, on Mount Saint 
Catherine in the Sinaitic Peninsula, and in the Tigre province 
_ of Abyssinia. The third is the present plant, which has uni- 
formly a much broader corolla, with nearly orbicular emargi- 
nate lobes, and entire or sparingly toothed calyx-lobes. 
Primula verticillata has been long cultivated in Europe, 
having been raised from seed brought, I believe, from the 
Sinaitic Peninsula; but the Abyssinian variety is of recent 
introduction into England by Messrs. Veitch. "The specimen 
here figured flowered in the Royal Gardens in March of the 
present year ; it grows freely on rockwork. 
_ Duscr. Rootstock as thick as the thumb, and several 
Inches long. Radical leaves six to twelve inches long, 
obovate-spathulate, contracted into a more or less long and 
broad petiole, acute, irregularly acutely toothed, clothed 
with a lemon-coloured or almost white meal beneath. 
Scape a span high and upwards, mealy, with two whorls of 
flowers subtended each by four to six leafy bracts, or with 
the upper whorl reduced to an umbel.  Javolucral leaves, 
sessile, ovate-lanceolate, 3-nerved, one to two inches long, 
toothed like the other leaves. Flowers very numerous, pale 
yellow ; pedicels slender, striate, erecto-patent, shorter than 
the involucre, furnished at the base with linear bracts. 
Calyx mealy, campanulate, cut to the middle into entire or 
toothed triangular-ovate lobes. Corolla-tube one inch long, 
limb nearly as much in diameter, lobes rounded, notched.— 
J.D. H. 
Fig. 1, Calyx, style, and stigma :—magnified. 
