PRIMULA. 



leaves, which are stalked and papery in texture, coarsely freely toothed 

 at the edge, and white with powder underneath. The wide lovely 

 flowers have the lobes entire and rounded, so that their face has a 

 full and cheerful look ; and in the P.trograd Herbarium P. glacialis 

 shows as a notably sturdy i plendid species in its splendid group. 



P. glaucescens refreshes us by leading up our feet once more on to 

 the copsy levels of the upper Lombard limestones, where it makes 

 wide great cushions in and out of the bushes, thus doing such sad 

 disservice to the race of which it is the least distinguished ornament. 

 For it is the only one of the four Arthritic species that is not found 

 in the high and open sunny turf of the mountain ridges so much as 

 among the opener places of the brushwood below the summits. And as 

 P. glaucescens is the commonest of the group, and one of the commonest 

 of all Primulas in gardens, under many names, it follows that P. 

 glaucescens has set a rule in gardeners' minds of shade and coolness for 

 all its kindred, which shade and coolness, on the contrary, all its kins- 

 men most profoundly resent. P. glaucescens is confined to the alps of 

 Bergamo, just advancing upon the Judicarian territories of P. specta- 

 bilis, and there, on Monte Cadi, near Brescia, has resulted the hybrid 

 P.xCarueli, which, being between two parents so closely related, has 

 no special value for the garden. P. glaucescens has the smooth firm 

 leathern leaves of this group, forming into wide mats, and brightly 

 gleaming. They are much stifTer than those of P. Clusiana, larger 

 than those of P. Wulfeniana, wholly lacking the gland-pits and 

 dulled -leather tone of P. spectabilis ; and from all of these might easily, 

 besides, be known by the extra -visible broad band of membrane they 

 wear round their edge, no less than by the chalky glaucescence that 

 they sometimes wear beneath. Tho purplish flower-stems are some 

 3 or 4 inches high, carrying a head of large lilac-purple flowers in varying 

 tones, with deeply cloven lobes and a rather thin texture ; so that, 

 for all their beauty, they do not compete successfully with those of 

 their wearer's nearest relations. There are two main forms of it : the 

 one called P. g. calycina, Duby and Pax (and catalogues), is the more 

 robust and largo in all its parts, and the commoner in the Lombard 

 Alps ; the second, P. g. longobarda, is altogether smaller, and adventures 

 higher on to the open turf of the Judicarian hills, meeting the other 

 type on Bondol and on Resegone, while the Grigna seems exclusively 

 occupied by P. calycina. There was also a thing once sent out as 

 P. intermedia (Hegetschw. and Hcer.) ; this is no more than P. 

 glaucescens, as sent out by foreign nurseries ; whereas the true plant, 

 if true such a pretender can be called, should belong to P. Clusiana. 

 In cultivation P. glaucescens is quite easy and popular, growing freely 



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