1917-18.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 245 



Ovary with flat summit somewhat top-shaped; style and 

 stigma pale green, long style included, the stigma about 

 2*5 mm. from corolla mouth, short style slightly shorter 

 than calyx ; stigma discoid-capitate. 



Kansu. " The specimens show the plant at its best, and 

 are from cool shady moss ledges (10th May) on the limestone 

 at about 6000-8000 ft. in the Satanee Alps. In those of 

 Siku it ascends actually to the summit ridges at 12,000- 

 13,000 ft. (22nd June), but here (I think the northerly limit 

 of its range) it is in all situations and heights much squinnier 

 and poorer in all ways than these fine but typical specimens 

 of the Satanee Alps. (Flowers from April-May, low down, 

 to the end of June on the tops. ) " F. 89. P. No. 2. Farrer 

 and Purdom. Coll. 1915. 



This species found by Messrs. Farrer and Purdom is now 

 in cultivation from seed collected by them, and it flowered 

 in the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, in 1916 in a cold 

 pit. It has not been grown outside yet, though it is prob- 

 ably hardj^, but covered as it is with yellow meal, easily 

 washed ofl' by rain, it will likely lose much of its eflective- 

 ness when grown in the open. 



One of the Yunnanensis series of Primula, its nearest 

 ally is the Yunnan P. meinbrani folia, Franch. That 

 species is readilj'' distinguished by the large cushion which 

 it forms, its paler leaves spathulate in form, its thinner 

 scape much shorter pedicels and calyx and by the colour of 

 the corolla and absence of meal on the outside of it. 



The flat prostrate rosette of leaves is a conspicuous 

 character of P. scopulorum, as is also the long period of 

 flowering. This results from the production of many 

 flowers in the umbel and their unfolding one after the 

 other. One sees the same prolonged flowering in other 

 members of the Yunnanensis series. 



Either P. scopulorum is a variable plant in Kansu or 

 two species very like one another and growing together 

 have been gathered and treated as one. Messrs. Purdom 

 and Farrer's dried specimens show two forms, and amongst 

 our cultivated plants two forms have appeared. I am not 

 yet prepared to deal with this problem. 



(Issued separately 29th December 1917.) 



