PRIMULA. 



butter-yellow ; the other, from one spot on the Cima Tombea, most 

 distinct, to be known as P. a. moschata, with large soft leaves, notably 

 lax and limp, powdeiiess, hairy, and densely glandular, with glands 

 emitting a violent odour of musk. The flowers are small and screwed-up 

 as in the worst forms of P. auricula, of tubular outline and deep golden 

 colour. All the forms of P. auricula are of the easiest culture any- 

 where in the rock-garden, to such a degree, indeed, that its children 

 and grandchildren have become ordinary border plants. For P. auri- 

 cula freely breeds with the other species that share its alps — never, 

 indeed, with the Arthritic section, but quite freely with the Redhairs. 

 All the offspring have to be lumped under the one name of P. x pubesc- 

 ens, and to P. pubescens belongs the whole vast race of garden Auriculas, 

 being descendants, interbred and interbred through ages, of the original 

 crosses, P. auricula with P. viscosa, P. hirsuta, and P. villosa. These 

 hybrids are fertile too, and breed again in and out with each other end- 

 lessly and then back again to their parents ; so that there is no real 

 differentiating them, or distinguishing them by any but fancy names 

 such as The General, or Mrs. J. H. Wilson. These hybrids, with their 

 children, have been in cultivation at least since the sixteenth century, 

 when Clusius saw them in the garden of his friend Dr. Aicholtz of 

 Vienna about 1560, and vainly sought them accordingly in the Austrian 

 and Styrian ranges, but understood them to abound in the CEnipontine 

 Alps. So far now have the garden Auriculas departed from the tradition 

 of their golden parent that they wear — even, indeed, from their first 

 generation — every colour in the red scale, but never the pure imperial 

 yellow of auricula itself — until, at least, they have bred so far back 

 towards their origin as to be almost pure auricula once more. One 

 named form, however, deserves to be remarked ; it appears in cata- 

 logues as P. decora (a false name for P. hirsuta), and is a clear and most 

 handsome P x pubescens, of neat free growth, attractive rosette of 

 dentate leaves, and generously-borne heads of large round mealy-eyed 

 flowers of a rich and beautiful blue-purple. This, being a cross-breed, 

 does not come true from seed, producing every shape and shade of 

 garden Auricula. Seed of the species, however, germinates freely ; or 

 the stock may be cut into lengths, or offshoots detached from the main 

 trunk about July. In all its forms P. auricula is of the most per- 

 manent and trustworthy nature. Although by choice a glory of the 

 limestone ranges, it suffers from no fads in the garden ; and tolerates sun 

 or moderate shade with equal equanimity, so long as its soil be deep 

 and wholesome, and as rich as can reasonably be made. One of 

 the greatest splendours on the Cliff at Ingleborough is a mass of 

 P. a. Bauhini, raked off its rock five years since, at four in the morning, 



(1,996) 113 II.— H 



