PRIMULA. 



golden-eyed blossoms of soft pure lavender-blue, delicate to the 

 nose as to the eye. It is a glory of the Nivalis group, but often im- 

 permanent, and sharing that sensitiveness of theirs about excessive 

 damp, which, like that of the leather trade, might almost be described 

 as morbid. High on the limestone mountains of Yunnan it lives, but 

 no less heartily in the garden, in light rich soil full of stones, and 

 well-watered from beneath (though such a precaution is not so much 

 a necessity here, as rather the extra luxury that extra loveliness is felt 

 to deserve). 



P. pulchdloeides. — Here the name is a flattery. For this is but a 

 spoiled version of the last, although the resemblance is undeniable. 

 But P. pulchdloeides, of the same habits, ease and needs, is narrower, 

 longer, floppier in the leaf ; the stems seem taller, because they carry 

 fewer flowers, ragged and starry and thin, on stiffer pedicels, and so in 

 less gracious and almost gawky heads. Yet it is fan to say that this 

 species might take high rank if it were not for the model with which 

 it deals so ill and so brazenly claims to resemble. 



P. ptdcherrima (of gardens) is a really Disraelitish piece of flattery 

 for various forms of P. denticulate. 



P. pulchra is a lovely thing, in the group of P. Oamheliana. The 

 whole plant is quite small, quite smooth, quite green, and quite powder- 

 less. The little leaves are roundish, lobed on their stalks, and in all 

 about 3 inches long at the most, pointed and wavy at the edge. Hardly 

 emerging from the tuft arises a 2-inch scape, carrying a big sheath, and 

 then a loose head of large purple blossoms, ample in the lobe. It is a 

 species from considerable altitudes in Sikkim. 



P. pulverulenta is well known by now, almost damaging the supre- 

 macy of P. japonica by the contrast between its whitewashed stems 

 and its larger flowers of a rather richer crimson. It has, moreover, 

 yielded a form or hybrid standing far up in the race ; Mrs. R. V. Ber- 

 kdey is not to be distinguished in ease and vigour from the type, but 

 has blossoms of a most lovely shell-pink pallor, suffused with a tinge 

 of apricot, overflowing from the golden eye. With P. Cockburniana, 

 again, the plant has produced, and goes on producing, a race of blood- 

 scarlet, salmon, and vermilion Primulas, all to be found under their 

 ,\ names in catalogues, but those names multiplied with unbear- 

 able generosity, seeing that the generic resemblance is so strong between 

 them all, and their parentage the same. 



P. p - a cushion-plant in the group of P. Fo.restii. 



P. x jmmila, Kerner, is the s< >cond branch of the hybrid P. x corouata 

 P '/.'•. 



P. pwnUa, Led., is a microform of P. nivalis, q.v. 



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