PRIMULA. 



and P. hirsuta, which contains some of the most gorgeous treasures in 

 the garden. Unfortunately, though they are quite easy to grow, the 

 hybrids are all painfully rare in nature, only to be found here and 

 there after long prying, and the most exhaustive and painful researches 

 in the Brenner Alps, where alone the parents achieve a meeting— and 

 this only with difficulty, because P. minima sticks to the open moor, 

 while P. hirsuta hugs the rocks and precipitous gullies above the 

 little waterfalls, so that it is there, and just above, on the shelves of 

 their cliffs, that there is best hope of the hybrids. P. x Steinii stands 

 in the median position between its parents, with toothed, shining, 

 half-sticky little leaves, and trusses of huge blooms on almost no 

 stem at all ; it may be seen in the limestone shingle of the Hintere 

 Onne. The cross, however, is fertile and various ; there are two 

 principal lines of divergence, one towards P. minima, the other to- 

 wards P. hirsuta. The name of the central type is P. x Steinii, Widmer, 

 and from its many and subsequent shades and intershades, crossings 

 and re-crossings (for these plants are fertile), stand out superbly 

 P. x Bilekii (as I believe, though I have never collected it), 

 P. x Forsteri, Widmer (minima> hirsuta), and P. x Kellereri, Widmer 

 (minima <hirsuta). These crosses are of unparalleled splendour, per- 

 fectly dwarf, almost as much so as Minima, but with flowers larger, 

 wider, and more solid than those of either parent, and of an almost 

 startling intensity of rich red or pink. This, of course, is true of the 

 best forms only ; the names can never be taken as fixed rigidly on 

 any one development, and I have seen types called P. x Kellereri 

 and P. x Forsteri that are pale and starry by comparison with the 

 regal oibs of claret-crimson velvet that I have long cherished as 

 those of P. Kellereri, and the expansive glowing stars that classically 

 belong to P. Forsteri. This last, but for the size of its flowers, and a 

 certain unmistakable different look in the leaf (owing to a minute 

 legacy of glandular dots and oval-shaped end from Hirsuta, is ap- 

 parently a gigantic Minima with two or three flowers to a minute 

 scape ; P. Kellereri is larger in leafage, darker in its green, more 

 glandular, and altogether approaches rapidly towards Hirsuta in a 

 smaller scale of growth and larger of flower. P. x B/ennia is a false 

 name. 



P. stelviana, Vulp.=P. oenensis, q.v. 



P. stenocalyx reserves the full psalm of its glory and value for the 

 Appendix. It also ombrares P. lejotofioda P. Biondiana, and possibly 

 P. co:inata. 



P. Slirtoniana is a lovely little alpine, making rosettes like that of 

 some Drosera, or a very toothy oval-leaved P. minima, from which 



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