PRIMULA. 



then, in habit to tho Primrose are PP. Sanctae-Coronae, radici flora, 

 Wv ibaurii, Eichteri, tomentosa, Brandisii, and ambigua ; intermediates, 

 more or less precise, are PP. flagellicaulis, cupularis, austriaca, terno- 

 viana, and anglica. Inclining more to the Cowslip : PP. brevistyla, 

 Legueana, Tommasinii, tristis, and gaisbergensis. At tho same time, 

 if we all turned botanists and ransacked the fields, we could each, 

 probably, end by producing a list of our own as long again, and as 

 perfectly indefinite, seeing the endless fertility of all these hybrids 

 and all their children, backwards and forwards and in every direction 

 for ever and ever. The same has to be said of the hybrids that P. 

 elatior has produced indiscriminately with P. acaulis and P. officinalis : 

 PP. media, sordida, Goeppertiana, fallax, brevifrons, and sileniflora. 

 And as for coloured and cultivated forms among these and the 

 vast garden posterity of Primrose, Cowslip, and Oxlip, all cata- 

 logues are full of them, and deal faithfully with their various mag- 

 nificences. 



P. Olgae. — Olga's Primrose, like Julia's, is peculiar to the Caucasus. 

 It is a neat small thing, smooth and unpowdered, but otherwiso in the 

 way of P. farinosa, with heads of rosy-lilac flowers on stems of some two 

 and a half inches, with the involucral bract under tho flower-head 

 rather winged and baggy. 



P. orbicularis died out, most tactlessly, after flowering. It was a 

 noble species, with fine round saucers, after the fashion of a pale 

 P. luteola, though its relationship is really with P. sikkimensis, and 

 it should, with proper attention to its seed, be as easily made 

 perennial under the damp conditions that suit that side of the 

 family. 



P. oreodoxa is a form of P. obconica, q.v. It is also sometimes a 

 garden-name of P. saxatilis, q.v. 



P. ossetica stands as ono of the best beauties under the shadow of 

 P. farinosa. Of this it has the habit, but tho flowers are much larger 

 than anywhere else in the section ; borne in loose heads on dainty 

 pedicels, and of a lovely violet-rose, with deep clefts to the rounded 

 lobes. And the sharply- scalloped little leaves are set with golden 

 meal. Its home is in tho alpine fields of the Ossetian Caucasus, and 

 so pre-eminent and special sounds its excellence that the assignation 

 of it to the group of P. farinosa is perhaps mistaken. 



P. ovalifolia has come and gone again, after once showing tho world 

 ite tuft of leathern oval foliage (with brown scale-leaves at the base), 

 its foxy-haired stem of 6 inches, and its head of splondid opon blossoms 

 of purplo, notched and handsome in the lobes. Its home is in tho 

 high cold region of Moupin, so that in time wo may surely hope to 



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