148 THE PRIMROSE FAMILY 



the level ground. With most of the smaller alpine 

 kinds it is different. They too require moisture, but 

 they must also have effective and rapid drainage. The 

 species are far too numerous to mention here even a 

 selection from them ; but from the Swiss P. auricula, 

 with which florists have played such pranks that the 

 modest yellow-flowered parent could never recognise 

 his piebald posterity, to the Cashmirean P. rosea, which 

 opens its carmine blossoms before it unfolds its leaves, 

 they all have the same troublesome habit of growing 

 out of the ground, requiring either to be taken up 

 annually and replanted neck-deep or heavily top- 

 dressed with gritty soil to represent the seasonal 

 tribute of melting ice. Howbeit, they are all worth the 

 extra trouble. 



A new colour in primroses has lately been discovered 

 in China by Mr. Wilson (not he who produced the blue 

 primrose, but the well-known collector who has added 

 so much to our knowledge of the exotic flora). 

 P. Cockburniana has a corolla of intense orange, tend- 

 ing to scarlet. Whether it will prove a good perennial 

 seems doubtful at present, for it seems to partake of a 

 biennial nature. 



The true primroses, as has been said, by no means 

 monopolise the beauty of the family. The androsaces, 

 hardy little mountaineers, reward the attention which 

 they well deserve, being impatient only of drought in 

 summer and stagnant damp in winter. It is surprising 

 that hardy cyclamens are found in so few gardens, for, 

 once established, they seed themselves freely, even in 

 gravel paths. There is much confusion in their names, 



