PRIMULA. 



When it is remembered how wide a gulf separates P. hirsuta from 

 P. viscosa, it will easily be seen that a name which is intended to cover 

 all hybrids of both these species with P. auricula can only be described 

 as a cry of despair. It results that P. pubescens is a name even more 

 vague and wild than Saxifraga aeizoon ; there is no analysing this series 

 of hybrids. " More or less " has to be appended to every descriptive 

 detail. Wherever P. auricula occurs with P. viscosa, P. villosa, or 

 P. hirsuta, there their bewildering polymorphic children are sure to 

 be found. In culture, P. pubescens is the oldest of all hybrid Primulas. 

 Clusius saw it in the rich garden of Dr. J. Aicholtz, at Vienna, about 

 1580, and understood it to abound in the Oenipontine Alps. And 

 P. pubescens is still, perhaps, the most important of hybrid garden 

 Primulas, for the name covers every florist's " Auricula," Green-edged, 

 Alpine, or Border, and such a multiplicity of other forms, too, that the 

 brain reels in contemplation. There are, in particular, the two albinoes, 

 called by catalogues P. " nivalis " and P. " helvetica " alba. They 

 are both of them, of course, according to present classification, P. pube- 

 scens alba. " Ut mihi videtur, a'bsurde," since the one is much nearer 

 to P. hirsuta, and the other to P. villosa (in shape of flowers). There 

 is also an absolutely different albino P. pubescens, which is typical 

 P. auricula x P. viscosa alba. This plant, an ancient inhabitant of 

 some north-country gardens, has the habit of P. viscosa, almost pure, 

 with dense one-sided bunches of narrow white trumpets, carried on 

 tallish stems, the whole clump tending to grow stalkily out of the 

 ground. Finally, as a small straw to cling to in the maelstrom of con- 

 fusion — P. pubescens — it may be remembered that that hybrid is, by 

 preference, of almost every colour in the rainbow except Auricula's 

 golden-yellow ; while it differs always from P. hirsuta, P. villosa, 

 P. viscosa in being less hairy, and also, usually, to a certain extent, 

 farinose in some of its parts. But the name of P. pubescens is hope- 

 lessly strained and artificial, especially as the primary hybrids are 

 fertile, and fertile again, to the third and fourth generation. There is, 

 for instance, the beautiful violet -flowered P. decora (of gardens) ; it is 

 a distinct enough form of P. pubescens, but its seedlings yield only 

 border Auriculas in every imaginable colour. See P. auricula. 



P. pulchella is almost patronised by its name. It is so far from 

 being a Little-pretty as to be among the very loveliest of the race ; 

 however, its dainty neatness may accept the name without dishonour, 

 so pleasant are its tufts of small and solid upstanding oval-pointed 

 leaves, gold-powdered beneath, greyish in shade, and at their curling 

 edge most delicately scalloped and goffered. But from this come up 

 fine stiff stems of 6 inches or even a foot, carrying a head of lovely-faced 



171 



