PRIMULA. 



P. dryad i folia. In the garden it only asks for incessant underground 

 water all the summer, in rough and rich light soil, chipful, spongy, and 

 perfectly drained ; it so thrives prodigiously, and doubles the number 

 of its crowns almost under one's eye. In winter it dies quietly down ; 

 the water should be turned off, and the clump kept as dry as possible, 

 while you must correct the tendency of its worn-out last year's rootage 

 to decay and loose the Sleeping Beauty from her anchorage, so that 

 she floats rudderless upon the surf of soil after the irritating fashion 

 of so many Primulas in whiter. 



P. pintchouanensis, like P. batangensis, is a yellow-flowered problem 

 so close to P. malvacea as to be suspected of only being a local colour- 

 variation or microform. 



P. Plantae, Brtigg=-P. oenensis, q.v. 



P. Poissoni belongs to the noble Candelabra group, and is a 

 species especially beloved in many catalogues and many gardens, where 

 it grows profusely, and sends up countless tiered stems of flower in 

 summer, and seeds itself into wide stretches and drifts over any moist 

 soil such as would suit P. japonica. For myself I cannot praise it ; 

 there is something cold and clammy about the whole plant ; the flowers 

 are of an acrid and chilly magenta, and the flopping smooth leaves 

 with their pallid midrib are flaccid and unpleasant as a corpse's fingers. 

 Add to which that P. Poissoni is by no means invariably hardy. 



P. pohjneura is the grand type of which P. Veitchii and P. lichian- 

 gensis are perhaps diminished variants. If the colours could be 

 mollified or mended or not minded, the group is valuable. See 

 Appendix. 



P. polyphylla belongs to the Denticulata Section, and has a specially 

 well-furnished rosette of foliage, and bagged wingy bracts underneath 

 the head of blossom, after the fashion of P. auriculata, with which it 

 has sometimes been confused. 



P. Pooliana, Briigg.=P. oenensis, q.v. 



P. x Portae, Huter, is P. x discolor, Leyb., q.v. 



P. Portenschlagii, Beck= P. x intermedia, Port., q.v. 



P. Prattii has yellow flowers, and may possibly belong to the 

 group of P. auriculata. But it exists merely in fragments, and its 

 description is in much the same condition ; so that Pratt's Primrose 

 must wait awhile for proper praise. 



P. prolifera is a most splendid plant of the Candelabra group, 

 haunting the watercourses of Kbasia at rather low altitudes, but 

 ascending to 12,000 feet. It has sumptuous tiered whorls of golden 

 blossom in the way of P. Bulleyana, but not as a rule so tall. In culti- 

 vation it should, being a lowlander, have the attentions paid to its 



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