300 ALPINE FLOWERS. Part II. 



speak of them in plain English and confine the Latin term to 

 the species. 



The double kinds, more delicate and slower-growing than 

 the single ones, require more care, and in their case the develop- 

 ment of healthy foliage after the flowering season should be the 

 object of those who wish to succeed with them. Shelter and 

 partial shade are the two conditions chiefly necessary to secure 

 this. Open woods, copses, and half-shady places are the 

 favourite haunts of the Primrose in a wild state. In them, 

 in addition to the shade, it enjoys shelter not merely from tall 

 objects around, but also from the Ibng grass and other herba- 

 ceous plants growing in close proximity ; and we should also 

 take into account the moisture consequent upon such com- 

 panionship, and let these facts guide us in the culture of the 

 double kinds. As' will be readily seen, a plant exposed to the 

 full sun on a naked border would be under a very different con- 

 dition to one in a thin wood ; the excessive evaporation and 

 searing away of the leaves by the- wind would be quite sufficient 

 to account for the failure of the exposed plant. It is therefore 

 desirable, in the case of the beautiful double Primroses, to plant 

 them in borders in slightly shaded and sheltered positions, using 

 light rich vegetable soil, and, if convenient, keeping the earth 

 from -being too rapidly dried up by spreading cocoa-fibre or leaf- 

 mould on it in summer. It would be better to plant them per- 

 manently in some favourite spot and leave them alone than to 

 change them repeatedly from place to place. They may, how- 

 ever, be employed as bedding plants, and successfully treated as 

 recommended for the single varieties, but for this purpose are 

 not so useful or pretty as when seen in good single tufts. 



They are increased by division of the roots, and to take them 

 up in order to divide these is the only disturbance they should 

 suffer. The double Primroses well grown and the same kinds 

 barely existing are such very different objects that nobody will 

 begrudge giving them the trifling attention necessary to their 

 perfect development. Occasionally they may be seen flourishing 

 by chance in some cottage or old country garden, where they 

 find a home more congenial than the prim and bare fashionable 

 flower-garden of our own day. 



