PRIMULA. 



P. pumilio is a tiny high-alpine from Kansu, making clumps of 

 leaves, barely half an inch long, stem and all, powderless and smooth- 

 edged ; and on these mats sit close the heads of soft pink flowers, 

 each of them about a quarter of an inch across, and making a lovely 

 effect when they are crowded upon the generous cushion. (Speci- 

 mens in the Petrograd Herbarium show no sign of the " wido 

 carpets " that figure in its description.) 



P. Purdomii arrivod in 1913, a brand-new species (as species it is), 

 and among the most royal in the royal kinship of P. nivalis. It forms 

 tufts of rather long, thin, and very pointed foliage, thick with grey 

 glandular powderiness till the whole tuft looks as if it had lived all 

 its years beside a popular motoring road, instead of in the fine sandy 

 cool peat of a grassy mountain-slope high in Tibet ; the stems are 

 grey no less, rising up a foot or so, bare and elegant, breaking out at 

 the top into a rocket-spray of specially large stars, perfectly flat across 

 their faces, with five ample blunt and oval lobes, so that they look, 

 on those stalks and above that leafage, like the head of some most 

 weird and cupless Narcissus that has watched the motors go by until 

 not only has it grown powdered as the footmen of the great, but has 

 changed the tone of its blossoms into the most sad and subtle tone 

 of pale lavender, that seems just the exquisite complement and 

 development of these ash-grey stems and leaves. Far away from 

 all rivalry, far away from all comparison, is this gracious lilac 

 Tazetta-Narcissus that has so strangely strayed into a race so 

 remote. In culture it has uttered no warning as yet ; but seems a 

 good and vigorous hearty perennial ; though calling, of course, for the 

 special care that its price and perfection combine to demand ; and 

 sometimes, like so many of the Nivalis group (to which it is in suspici- 

 ously close alliance, barely separated by its larger stigma), inclined to 

 give up the ghost after the strain of producing those lovely blossoms. 

 In nature it gives the cultivator a significant hint ; it lives among the 

 long grass, in rich loam, high up on the well-drained alpine slopes of 

 Tibet. In autumn the deep hay dies down over the dead crowns 

 of the Primula, and covers them all in a dense thatch of perfect 

 dryness, beneath the dry warm coverlet of snow that overlies the 

 mattress of the grass. (Purdom, 1911 ; and see Appendix.) 



P. purpurea has but just emerged from a confusion with P. nivalis 

 macro phylla. Await enlightenment. 



P. pusilla looks a miffy little plant. Botanically it stands near 

 to P. bella, but differs in being hairy, though with the same fluffy 

 beard blocking its throat. It has no relation to P. glabra, for while 

 P. glabra has the short scape and rather large flowers, too small in 



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