PRIMULA. 



information before the popes of Primula will be able properly to 

 pronounce upon it. 



P. fangutica I believe to be not specifically distinct from P. 

 Maximowiczii, of which typically ugly plant it is typically the ugliest 

 development. In a thousand diversities of dowdiness both the (sup- 

 posed) species grow together over the huge grass-downs of Northern 

 Tibet, among P. Woodwardii, P. Purdomii, and a fine yellow Nivalid. 

 At its very best the tall lax tiers of blossom in P. tangutica resemble 

 inferior and lunatic hyacinths of green, varnished with mahogany on 

 the outside and rimmed round their rays with pale citron ; at their 

 average they are in varying shades of dull chocolate, and at their 

 worst sink to a dirty blackness. 



P. Tanneri is a Himalayan from the high Rhododendron glades, 

 making tufts of toothed, stalked violet-shaped leaves, which are 

 glaucous underneath when young ; and the stems rise up to some 5 or 

 8 inches, unfolding simple graceful heads of large and lovely lavender- 

 blue flowers with a notched or fringy edge and a golden eye. It 

 stands very near to P. Griffithii in the group of P. petiolaris. 



P. taraxacoeides is another Chinese species, with blue blossoms, after 

 the habit of P. sonchifolia, and with the same eccentricities of leafage, 

 which here, however, is held more markedly to recall the Dandelion. 



P. tenella produces mealy little stalked leaves, obovate or rhomboid, 

 scallop-toothed to the tip from the middle, with delicate threadlike 

 stems of an inch or two, each carrying one large smooth blossom of 

 bluish-white, deeply notched along the edge of its heart-shaped lobes. 

 (High altitudes between Sikkim and Bhotan.) 



P. tenuiloba was originally reckoned only a variety of P. mus- 

 coeides, q.v., but has now been given rank of its own, because, although 

 the same in its densely matted habit, the foliage is evenly and 

 minutely (instead of quite deeply and coarsely) toothed, while the 

 flowers are two or three times as large, with specially narrow lobes, 

 deeply cloven into two more strips, starting apart, so that the whole 

 wide blue blossom has a rich spidery effect. 



P. tenuissima=P. odontocalyx. 



P. tibetica belongs to the highest highlands of its high land, and 

 is a beautiful thing, akin to P. pumilio in some ways, but more sug- 

 gesting a P. sibirica so much dwarfed that there is hardly a trace of 

 the stalk left, but only the pink or blue great flowers with cloven lobes, 

 almost as if each had only its own stem on which to spring from the 

 tuft, which is very small and neat and dense. 



P. x Tommasinii is among the Cowslip-inclining hybrids of P. 

 acaulis and P. officinalis. 



