222 A GUIDE TO FLORICULTURE. 



POLYANTHUS. 



(PRIMULA.) 



" Fair plant ! as plentiful as fair ! 



Before thou meet'st the eye, 

 Thy fragrance fills the summer air, 

 And tells that thou art nigh." 



This beautiful herbaceous evergreen is a perennial, 

 highly ornamental, nearly equal to the Auricula. It flowers 

 from March to May. The leaves are ovate and toothed, 

 throwing up a stem about six inches high, bearing a beau- 

 tiful truss, and emitting a delightful fragrance ; it is every 

 way grateful for its delicacy. It is considered by some 

 botanists to belong to the Primrose family. A Mr. Her- 

 bert has endeavored to prove this, in the London Horticul- 

 tural Transactions, Vol. iv, page 19. He states that from 

 the natal seed of the Cowslip, he raised a Primrose, a Cow- 

 slip, an Oxlip, a Polyanthus, a Hose-in-hose Cowslip, and 

 a Primrose bearing its own flowers on a Polyanthus stalk. 

 From this circumstance he is induced to believe that all 

 are of the same family. This doctrine may have suited 

 other times, when flowers were not so well understood as 

 at present. There is no doubt that Mr. Herbert was sin- 

 cere in his belief; but his seed may have got mixed by 

 accident, or some of his flowers may have become impreg- 

 nated, thus producing the difference in varieties. I have 

 tried the experiment ; gathering the seed myself, but the 

 result was always the same as the original plant. There 

 is no florist at this day that will advance such an hypothesis ; 



