PRIMULA. 



is evident that we have been fortunate in getting, and keeping, an 

 .'tionally fine type, which seeds so copiously too, and from seed 

 so copiously varies, that out of one's own batches one may select half 

 a dozen better developments of fuller flower or dwarfer growth or 

 more brilliant colour or brighter white eye. Our type is a real treasure 

 in fact, in the habit and tuft of P. involucrata, but three times the size, 

 with foliage lush and green, that goes flop hi summer beneath the 

 sun, even if sustained by any amount of underground drinking. The 

 stems rise up, countless and tall, at the end of May and far on into 

 July, with a second burst in September, carrying large loose heads of 

 large and broadly starry flowers of bright lilac-pink with another star 

 in their centre of white, and the most delicious sweetness adding to 

 their charm. Any cool rich soil of the bog will suit this species, which 

 may easily be divided in spring, and comes prodigiously from seed. 

 See Appendix. 



P. Sibthorpii (Hffmsgg., 1842), is rightly P. acaulis rubra, Sibth. and 

 Smith, 1813, and is that beautiful single Primrose, red, lilac, purple and 

 crimson, which is the prevalent form, throughout the Levant, of P. 

 acaulis, and has been the parent of all our coloured garden primroses. 

 This is P. " amocna " of Robinson ; it has also unlawfully shared 

 with the true P. amoena (Bieb.) (in which, as originally described, 

 P. Sibthorpii had a share) in the name P. " altaica." But the name 

 altaica had also previously been given to the form of P. elatior, whose 

 valid title is P. Pallasii, while all the time it only belonged to 

 P. farinosa altaica (Lehmann), figured in the Bot. Mag. of 1809 as 

 P. intermedia. After all this confusion we utterly drop P. "altaica," 

 renounce P. "Sibthorpii,'" reinstate P. acaulis rubra and let the 

 rightful P. amoena come at last to its own again. 



P. Sieboldii, Morren, is a beloved and immemorial ally from Japan, 

 with its running masses of soft crumply oval leaves, scalloped and 

 stalked ; and its tall bare stems opening wide heads of beautiful 

 flowers in almost every colour and conceivable design of fringing 

 segment. These varieties all may be collected from the catalogues 

 that contain them ; and in cool soil, rich and light, the jungles of the 

 growth will in time cover the ground far and wide, easily to be divided 

 in spring and raised from seed. P. Siebcldii is always confused in 

 lists with P. cortusoeides, L.. a species with which it has nothing to do. 

 All forms of genuine P. Sieboldii may easily be recognised by the widely 

 spreading lobes of the calyx ; nor is the true P. cortusoeides to be found 

 in Japan at all, or anywhere further east than Korea. Unfortunately 

 the Japanese plant (P. Sieboldii, Morren) was subsequently called 

 P. cortusoeides by Thunberg, Lindley, and Verschaffelt — these latter 



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