10 History of Primula 



year, and in a recent letter he informs me that the double variety may 

 have appeared some years before it was sent out, Messrs Vilmorin do 

 not remember exactly, but they state that at first the flowers were 

 rather small and only half double but that since then the variety has 

 been greatly improved in size and duplication of the flowers and that 

 it now reproduces as well as any other variety. The colour is stated to 

 have been pale rose like the type. Herr Arends informs me that he 

 obtained seeds of the double form from Messrs Vilmorin and attempted 

 to improve the variety by crossing with his own plants. In the course 

 of several years he has obtained " larger flowers, stronger growth and 

 rose-coloured flowers as well as the old lilac ones." Reference to 

 modern catalogues shows that there are now several double varieties 

 offered by nurserymen. 



Doubling of the flowers in the genus Primula as is probably well 

 known, may take place in one of two ways. In the case of P. sinensis 

 the modern varieties such as Crimson King,, etc., double the flowers 

 by corona-like outgrowths from the corolla lobes at the back of each 

 anther and the coloured surface of the outgrowth faces that of its 

 corolla lobe or in other words the added lobes show the colours 

 reversed. 



In the old double white variety of P. sinensis, known as P. sinensis 

 var. jlore pleno, which appears to have been produced about the year 

 1839^ and which can only be propagated by cuttings, the doubling 

 is of a "hose-in-hose" character, the colours of the added lobes not 

 being reversed but corresponding in arrangement to those of the 

 original corolla. In P. obconica the doubling is also "hose-in-hose" 

 and there is no reversal of arrangement and colour as in the modern P. 

 sinensis doubles. P. obconica, however, sometimes shows a tendency to 

 doubling in yet another manner owing to the splitting of upgrowths of 

 the corolla between adjoining corolla lobes, these ridges split towards 

 the centre and so tend to produce a kind of corona with the colours 

 reversed, but with this difference that the "corona lobes" alternate 

 with the corolla lobes while in P. sinensis they are opposite to them. 



This method can at present be hardly considered as more than a 

 tendency towards doubling, for it may only be shown by some of the 

 flowers in an inflorescence ; it is however of considerable interest and it 

 seems possible that by careful selection a new type of double P. obconica 

 might be developed (Plate II, figs. 27, 29). 



1 See Paston's Magazine of Botany, vi. 1839, p. 262. This sport appears to have 

 arisen at Henderson's Nursery, Pine Apple Place, London. 



