PRIMULA. 



octopetala, set with heads of large round fragrant blossoms of rich rose- 

 pink emerging from a bag of dark purple bracts. P. dryadifolia 

 grows beside the great Li-kiang glacier in Yunnan in the wet rocky 

 places close to the melting icefield, and so high up that only P. bella 

 is its companion. Here it undergoes unthinkable vicissitudes of 

 climate, very late in emerging from its snow-shroud, and very quickly 

 covered up again. Its robust sunruticose habit, and its lack of 

 perilous down, no less than its radiant happiness in such untoward 

 conditions, give us good hope that it may really be an addition to the 

 garden as permanent in the underground watered moraine-bed as it 

 will assuredly there be glorious. 



P. Dubernardiana is another suffruticose Chinese Primula, with 

 flowers among the ample foliage. 



P. Duclouxii. — A species in the group of P. malacoeides, and there- 

 fore unsuited to the open air. It is quite dwarf, as it grows on the 

 mountain, with short scapes nestling among the leaves. The only 

 two undoubted species in this group are P. Forbesii and P. malacoeides 

 (with a distinct and less robust form, occurring hi cultivation, which is 

 the to-called P. pseudo- malacoeides). Both these plants were ushered 

 into civilisation with a loud flourish of trumpets, and true to say they 

 are easy, pretty little useful things. But they have a lush, lax 

 ephemeral look which betrays their character, for neither is hardy, nor 

 has the group even a perennial tendency, despite the persistence of 

 P. Forbesii. The brightest of the group is P. androsacea. 



P. Edgeworthii is a beauty which has with difficulty secured itself 

 from being overshadowed by the large name of P. petiolaris. It is 

 now reckoned as a distinct species, differing from all forms of P. 

 petiolaris in the shape of the leaf, though otherwise similar, except in 

 the broad ovate lobes of the calyx, which recurve after flowering. 

 As P. Winteri has emerged from under the shadow of P. petiolaris, it 

 will well be understood that aU the kindred of this glorious thing are 

 greatly to be longed for in our gardens, where a proud and happy future 

 may be foretold for most. 



P. efarinosa is a pretty neat sort from Central China which might 

 prove akin to P. Knuthiana. It is said to be in cultivation, but little 

 known. 



P. egallicensis is a Greenland form of P. farinosa. 



P. elatior is the true or Bardfield Oxlip, always to be distinguished 

 from the much wider-flowered false Oxlip, the hybrid between Cowslip 

 and Primrose, frequent where both occur together, whereas P. elatior 

 has but a limited distribution in the midlands. 



P. elegans. See under the garden labels of P. rosea, q.v. 



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