PRIMULA. 



capsules ; from P. integrifolia in having toothed leaves, more 

 flowers to an umbel (inclining to be one-sided), on longer foot-stalks, 

 of a beautiful rich blue-purple or violet, rather smaller, and with no 

 white glandular fur in the throat, though there is a scanty peppering 

 of powder. It is a beautiful plant, taking the best from each parent 

 and leaving the worst ; its neat habit and large head of large bright- 

 purple blossoms will always distinguish it, in the districts where they 

 all occur ; it varies in form, of course, like every hybrid. The long 

 bracts and baggy calyx inherited from P. integrifolia would always 

 be diagnostics to separate it from any other hybrid of P. viscosa. 

 Unfortunately, in gardens, the names of P. Muretiana and P. Mureti 

 are applied with indiscriminate wrong-headedness to a small" and 

 specially vigorous mat-forming Primula with clumped rosettes of shin- 

 ing smooth foliage, faintly toothed, sending up empurpled stems of an 

 inch or two, with large dark lilac-magenta flowers with darker touches 

 yet at the base of the five lobes, and in calyces purple as the stems. 

 There can be no doubt that this is some form of P. x Venzoi, the 

 natural hybrid between -P. minima and P. tyrolensis, unless oc- 

 casionally it be a development of P. x Deschmannii, q.v. 



P. muscoeides is the smallest of the race, a microscopic jewel on the 

 highest passes of Sikkim, where it forms dense, moss-like masses in and 

 out among the roots and rhizomes of other high-alpines, and has 

 very much the look of P. minutissima, but that it is smaller still, and 

 with the lobes of the flowers deeply cloven into narrow lobes, so that 

 they have a starrier face. 



P. x mutata. — A superfluous name for P. x Deschmannii, q.v. 



P. nanocapiiata, a very poor, small miff, under the name of 

 P. capitata. 



P. nessensis is really P. pclyphylla, with bunches of pink blooms 

 on tall stems, like a young P. denticulata that is trying to be P.farinosa. 



P. neurocalyx stands near P. malvacea, and has no place out of 

 doors in the garden, nor, indeed, a high place anywhere ; for it is a 

 small-flowered species in its large-leaved group (P. Rosthornii, Diels). 



P. nipponica is abundant in alpine pastures of Japan — a dainty 

 white P. farinosa with neat rosettes of fleshy tiny leaves. 



P. "nivalis," of gardens=P. nivea, Sims (1809), being the- only 

 possible correct name for this beautiful and favoured albino form of 

 P. x pubescens, upon which so false and ludicrous a label as " nivalis " 

 has been long fixed by the ignorance of catalogues. It is an ample- 

 headed, smoother, and creamy-white version of P. villosa, remarkably 

 vigorous, but too crowded in the head to equal another cross in the 

 same name, which is usually called P. " helvetica " alba, and has 



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