PRIMULA. 



P. amtricana is merely a sub-name for the universal type of 

 P. fatinosa gem 



P. armthystina is a Chinese species for which as yet we must 

 vainly long. It bears beautiful violet bell-flowers on drooping 

 pedicels — a dainty Utile loveliness with firm foliage resembling a daisy'B, 

 from damp mountain -meadoi 2 feet up on Tsang-chan in 



.an. 

 P. amoena, whose name has too long served in gardens as a disguise 

 for P. acaulis rubra. is : in point of fact, a perfectly distinct and lovely 

 species which has pa oblivion. It may be roughly 



described as a mauve or purple Polyanthus. It ranges through 

 Caucasus and Lazistan, developing local forms, differentiated as 

 P. a. intermedia. P. a. Meyeri, P. a. grandiflora, and P. a. hypoleuca. 

 ype-form genuina has long, indeed, been introduced into cultiva- 

 tion, but so universal is the false name of P. amoena for the red 

 • Primrose that I cannot now tell where the genuine P. amoena may still 

 be to be found. 



P. androsa-cea is a pretty little Yunnanese annual akin to P. 

 Forbtsii. and of no use for outdoor culture, with a neat basal rosette 

 of leaves, and delicate bare stems carrying whorls of pink flowers on 

 half -drooping pedicels. I. is the prettiest of its group. 



P. angustidens is rightly P. WUsoni, and has come to us from 

 Yunnan. It is a handsome, damp-ground species belonging to the 

 easily recognised section of P. japonica and P. Poissoni. It resembles 

 this latter in its smooth, dent a e foliage, stout and succulent as 



a cabbage. The tall, slender spires are set at intervals with close 

 whorls of rounded blossoms that have the vindictive magenta-purple 

 tone so painfully prevalent in this section. Xo difficulty attends the 

 culture of P. angustidens in any cool rich ground, and it seeds 

 profusely. The na overs a mixiure of species. 



P. angustifolia is one of the few American species, and is 

 not in cultivation, a minute, delicate, powderless little plant, with 

 entire stalked leaves of remarkable narrowness, and one or two rosy- 

 purple flowers on hardly any scape at all, nestling among the foliage. 

 It inhabits the Rockies from Colorado to New Mexico. 



ioa is a name that sometimes figures in catalogues. It 

 ae among the many forms of hybrid between P. acaulis and 

 P. datior — the Primrose and the true Oxlip. However, when this 

 ;jpointment is surmounted P. anisiaca is found a ically delightful 

 tufty plant, amazingly profuse of its loose heads of short -scaped pale 

 Oxlip Bowers from the blackest days of January onward, until all the 

 form^ of P. acavlie are in full chorus. Other developments of this 



110 



