PRIMULA. 



leaves looking like those of Ranunculus bilobus, and short scapes carry- 

 ing three or four very large round flowers of brilliant purple-pink with 

 a golden throat. P. Gambeliana occurs only in Sikkim, at higher 

 altitudes than P. rotundi folia, and affects banks of damp moss in the 

 dense forest, growing almost epiphytically. It is by now in cultiva- 

 tion, and we may well long for the day when we all can attempt its 

 conquest. 



P. Gammieana represents P. Roylei in East Sikkim, and both 

 have been largely confused with P. obtusifolia. 



P. gemmifera is described as a handsome annual from rocks 

 overhanging the Czan-ho river in Kansu. Its habit is that of a 

 Saxifrage : it produces reproductive bulbils in the axils of its leaves, 

 and the large flowers are said to be violet.* 



P. geraniifolia is a charming little plant, simulating the habit of a 

 Cortusa, with graceful loose trusses of large round rosy flowers rising 

 well above the stalked, crinkled leaves so like those of Geranium or 

 Cortusa. This is a native of the Chumbi Valley, and is in cultivation. 

 It comes readily from seed, but I have little experience of it in its later 

 stages. It will probably enjoy the same treatment as its close relative, 

 P. cortusoeides, but, being smaller and frailer, may well exact a little 

 more care in some more special place. 



P. Giraldiana is the proper name of the pleasant but rather miff y 

 little species introduced by the Bees, Ltd., as P. muscarioeides. It is 

 small in growth, with quite small purple flowers packed into close 

 drooping heads at the top of a stem rising some 8 or 12 inches above 

 the neat rosette of long-oval upstanding hairy leaves, neatly scallop- 

 lobuled at the edge, and of thin membranous texture. Like the rest 

 of this group it should have a choice place in the underground-watered 

 bed ; but no Lisurance Office will accept it as a really sound life. 



P. glabra is a small hairless Indian alpine, with a rosette of out- 

 spread leaves, distinctly and delicately toothed, and then a stem of 

 3 or 4 inches carrying six or more flowers like those of an exaggerated 

 P. farinosa. It should have the same treatment, but its heads are 

 not so well proportioned to the ample rosette. 



P. glacialis. — It is beside the Li-kiang Glacier that P. glacialis 

 earns its name, and opens its wide saucers of violet blossom, many in a 

 head, on a stem of an inch or a good deal more, surmounting the 



* I leave this note, from the Paxian diagnosis, but the classical specimens of 

 P. gemmifera in the Petrograd Herbarium are merely (a) a poor Sibirica-form found also 

 by m}'self in the Da-Tung Alps, and (/3) my own P. " acdamata," Balf. fil., a very beautiful 

 and valuable species, which is not an annual, throws no bulbils, and is not in the least 

 degree like a Saxifrage. In fact, it contradicts the above diagnosis in every point, having 

 large round flowers of rosy lilac, and standing very near to P. conspersa in the obvious 

 group of P. farinosa and P. stenocalyx. 



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