Primulas 



I noticed that where the rosettes have waxed so strong they 

 insist on sending up ridiculous, dwarfed, flower-crowded 

 stems at intervals all the summer through, and doing 

 nothing towards a fat cabbage for next winter's sleep. 

 Several have gone off yellow, as its near relative farinosa 

 so often does after a good orgy of flowering, and I rather 

 expect it will be best to starve longiflora into less ambitious 

 displays or, if it comes easily from seed, treat it as a 

 biennial. If it can be so grown it will be well worth the 

 trouble : the mealy calyx and reddish-purple flowers 

 "reether redder than I could wish " as Bailey Junior said 

 of his imaginary beard were wonderfully good to see 

 when at their best. P. glutinosa lives and grows, but, as I 

 believe to be only too usual in English gardens, has offered 

 no trace of a flower. No more has tyrolensis, but has made 

 such deep green rosettes and wide leaves that they must 

 surely mean a promise of good things later on. Minima 

 and the hybrids looked so chubby and cheery on their 

 return to greenness I expected great things of them, but 

 never a bud appeared until I had given up looking for 

 them, and at the end of June I was astonished by a goodly 

 sprinkling of rosy-purple and a few pure white blooms, all 

 as large and well-coloured as when I selected them. But 

 the stupid things were so pleased at pleasing me they have 

 tried to go on with it, and through the Dog Days have kept 

 on sending up mean, flabby, starry caricatures of their 

 former successes. P. spectabilis opened a very few eyes, 

 but has been so busy working up a stock of large green 

 leaves that it had no time for such frivolities as flowers 

 this season. 



P. pedemontana behaved in the same way its first season 

 139 



