PRIMULA. 



cousin, P. imperialist and, considering its beauty, there is something 

 suspicious about its infrequency in cultivation. 



P. pseudo-brad caia is a meallcss twin to P. Forrestii. 



P. pseudo-capitata is smaller and darker in the ball of blossom. 



P. \ is a valueless species of its group, flowering even 



earlier than P. d 



P. pseudo-daiior is a microform of P. datior. 



P. pseudo-Forsteri is a false name of Gusmus for the hybrid between 

 /'. hirsuta and P. miniina — to which, with his usual generosity, he has 

 given no fewer than four distinct names : P. pseudo-Forsteri, P. brennia, 

 P. diversa. and P. venalensis. All forms of this glorious hybrid will be 

 found under P. x Steinii, the central t}-pe. 



P. pseudo-malacoeides is ihe worse form, weaker, uglier, and miffier, 

 of P. malacoeides as grown in gardens. 



P. pseudo-sikkimensis really deserves better than to be included in 

 this gallery of liars. For though it is not P. sikkimensis, it has a 

 beauty in the same line, delicate and slender (though not so noble as 

 the shorter and broader-leaved P. microdonta), with larger flowers 

 than even in P. sikkimensis. These all are easy and lovely in the same 

 conditions. 



P. x pulescens, Jacq., is the name that has to cover, like a cloth 

 cast over a heap of unsortable untidiness, the whole vast family of 

 primary, secondary, tertiary hybrids (always fertile), not only of 

 P. auriculaxP- hirsuta, but also of P. auricula with P. viscosa and 

 P. villosa. These two last crosses, of course, ought each to have had 

 a distinct name of their own, leaving P. pubescens quite enough to 

 do in successfully embracing all the children, grandchildren, and 

 remoter tangled descendants of P. auricula and P. hirsuta. However, 

 the complications are by now too vast and old for any unravelling ; 

 but, to make the matter worse, the countless collected and developed 

 forms in this chaos have often proved so distinct that, as each enthu- 

 found — as each enthusiast si ill may, wherever the parents, any 

 of them, abound — especially brihiant and beautiful developments in 

 the group, he was pardonably tempted to follow Sahvy's example, 

 and li give it a name, I beg," of its own. And all these, at one timo 

 or another, have slipped into catalogues, so that not only have wo 

 ent to look for under the name of P. x pube- 

 scens, but also a whole host of synonyms and pseudonyms and un- 

 authorised nam must properly be discarded. Among these 

 are : P. rhaetica (Gaud), P. helvetica (Donn), P. alpina (Schleicher), 

 P. intermedia be), P. Obblii (Kerner), P. Arctoiis (Korner), 

 /'. Kerneri (Gobi.), ai d P. Pey • in). 



170 



