PRIMULA. 



nothing but either P. farinosa scotica, or else the genuina form of 

 typical P. farinosa itself, so called by Stein in 1888. 



P. Watsoni is the most wort Mess species of the Grape-hyacinth 

 group. It makes rosettes of shaggy oblong foliage, and sends up 

 rather tall bare fat stems that end in a spike of small and wizen flowers 

 ridiculously insignificant at the top of such a powdered maypole. 



P. Wattii, on the other hand, is one of the treasured lovelinesses in 

 that terrible group of the Soldanellas, of whom it wants all the usual 

 care and reverence, and perfect drainage, and rich stony soil, and 

 underground moisture, and subsequent rest in winter ; which it will 

 reward, if the mood so take it, with a thick little well-furnished rosette 

 of upstanding primrose leaves, very shaggy all over with long glistering 

 white hairs, and crinkled and feathered on either side from the middle 

 in toothed and scalloped lobes. From their midst shoot up the powdered 

 sturdy smooth stems of some 4 or 5 inches, ending in a well-furnished 

 head of especially fat and solid fringy-edged bells of sapphire-blue, 

 depending, in much larger domes, from the rounded Bj-zantine cupolas 

 of their comfortable calyces. 



P. Whitei is a close cousin to P. petiolaris {q.v.), and that is all 

 that can yet be said about it except that it comes from Bhutan, and 

 may easily at a glance be mistaken for its rival. 



P. x Widmerae, See under P. x coronata.. 



P. Wilsoni is the only correct name of the species described under 

 P. angustidens, q.v. 



P. Winteri. — It is unfair to say that the name of P. Winteri is a base 

 and unpardonable pun, yet true it is that in mid-winter always seem 

 to emerge the crowded new rosettes of powdered, rounded, toothed 

 leaves on their firm foot-stalks, and in their heart an interminable 

 cabbage of these glorious wide lavender-lilac flowers with their fringed 

 lobes and noble outline, succeeding each other for many months, in 

 a rivalry of beauty, against the grey and mealy beauty of the robust 

 leaves, if only the weather will allow. There is no other fault than 

 this — which perhaps is merely due to the plant's inexperience — to 

 be brought against this unparalleled introduction, which is perfectly 

 hardy anywhere, and perfectly peremiial too, in any well-drained rich 

 soil, moist in summer (or merely rich), and not water-logged in winter. 

 It will in time very likely begin to throw out runners also, such is its 

 almost cruciferous rampageousness of hearty habit, and such the 

 general fashion in the race of P. petiolaris, to which species it stands so 

 near that, though now acknowledged a true species, it was known for 

 years as P. petiolaris pulverulenta. And in the meantime it will 

 freely come from seed (which, however, as becomes a jewel, requires 



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