PRIMULA. 



P. septemloba, with rather longer and more trumpet -shaped 

 flowers, exactly recalls Cortusa Matthioli, and has the same habits, 

 ease, and temper. It is taller, and at the same time narrower in the 

 tube, and less generous in the bell than its much more attractive fellow- 

 woodlander, P. heueherifolia, which sometimes appears in lists as 

 P. Oaignepainii. See Appendix. 



P. x seriana is the hybrid between P. oenensis and P. hirsuta. See 

 P. oenensis. 



P. Serra (Small) is P. Rusbyi, q.v. 



P. x serrata (Gusmus), a false name of his for his own P. x serrati- 

 folia, being the first tj-pe of the hybrid P. x Deschmannii, q.v. 



P. x serratifolia (Gusm.). See P. Deschmannii. 



P. serratifolia of Pax is a portmanteau packed with P. Beesiana 

 and P. pulverulenta , as well as the true P. serratifolia, Franch. 



P. serratifolia, Franch., is attributed to the Candelabra section, 

 but is very much less in the style of P. japonica than in that of 

 P. sikki?nensis, sending up no tiered tower of blossoms above its tuft of 

 sharply-gashed and saw-toothed foliage, but a stem of 8 inches or so, 

 bearing a head of graceful pendent bells precisely after the habits and 

 portraits of P. sikki?nensis and P. s&cundiflora, except that a second 

 feebler shower may sometimes be unfolded above the first. It is the 

 least and weakest of this gorgeous and cabbage-like group, though of 

 especially gracious delicate port of its own, between the charm of both 

 sections, and catching some from each. The flowers may best be 

 figured by imagining so many bells of a rich orange, which has faded 

 all round the rims and lobes to a soft primrose, leaving only a central 

 radiating suffusion of the original colour, till the blossom-heads 

 absurdly recall those of Lewisia Howellii on a smaller scale. The 

 culture should rather be that advised for P. secundiflora than the bog- 

 treatment and heavy fatness in which the rest of the Japonica 

 section do their best. 



P. sertulum makes a neat tuft of small blunt leaves, sharply toothed 

 and oblong-oval ; with stems twice their length, carrying a heavily- 

 furnished head of large saucer-shaped violet or white blossoms, deeply 

 cloven in the lobes, and emerging from bell-shaped powdered calyces 

 on pedicels twice or thrice as long. No more can yet be said of 

 P. sertulum, which hails from Tatsienlu. 



P. sibirica, when true, is but a poor thin thing, with two or three 

 pink flowers to the umbel. Fortunately it is now represented in 

 gardens by what is called P. s. chhiensis, more rightly to be now 

 known as P. Wardii — a very variable and valuable development of 

 the Alps up the marches of Tibet and over the north of China. It 



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