” 
Conference held in April, 1913, Professor Bayley Balfour 
remarked that the group of forms of which /?. nivalis, 
Pall., is the type includes no fewer than seven Chinese 
species, all of which, with the exception of P. albijtos, 
Ward, have blue or purple flowers. Of these P. sino- 
purpurea ig one of the most striking. It has proved 
quite hardy at Kew, where, planted in the Rock Garden 
in half-shade, it has grown well and flowered freely. 
The first examples to flower did so in April, 1916, and 
from one of these our figure was made. Examples which 
flowered in April, 1917, and again in April, 1918, have 
developed into specimens more robust than the original 
ones, with the flowers sometimes arranged in two whorls 
about a couple of inches apart, the upper whorl then 
producing as many as twenty flowers. In each season 
these plants have ripened seeds from which a new crop 
has been raised. Like some other Chinese Primulas, 
P. sinopurpurea must be treated as a biennial, for under 
cultivation the plants usually die after flowering. 
Description.— Herb, stout and frequently about 4 in. high, but sometimes 
larger and exceeding a foot in height. Leaves rosulate, ascending or spreading, 
oblanceolate, acute or subacute, narrowed at the base with a winged petiole, up 
to 8 in. long and 1} in. wide, thinly papery or almost membranous, repand- _ 
toothed, glabrous above, yellow and mealy beneath; lateral nerves ascending, 
aeag 8 on each side, much branched, prominent on both surfaces; «petiole 
broad, up to 8 in. long. Scapes up to over a foot in height, stout, mealy in the 
upper half; flowers about 6 in a terminal umbel; bracts ovate-lanceolate, 
acuminate, 1~} in. long, narrow, mealy; pedicels slightly drooping, }-} in. 
long, densely covered with yellow meal. Calyx narrowly tubular-campanulate, 
sparingly mealy without, densely mealy within; tube 1 in. long; lobes 5, 
oblong, obtuse, + in. long, very narrow. Corolla deep violet; tube cylindric, 
widened upwards, 2-3 in. long, striate, slightly mealy externally near the base, 
with a spreading 5-lobed limb about 11 in. wide ; lobes broadly elliptic or sub- 
orbicular, about } in. long. Anthers inserted near the middle of the tube, 
oblong, 5 in. long. Style over tin. long; stigma subglobose. Fruit cylindric, 
= in. long, } in. across, 
Tas. 8777.—Fig. 1, calyx and pistil; 2, corolla, laid open; 8, pistil:—all 
enlarged. 
